perfect life daily

For the Teacher

In fifth grade, I won second place in the school spelling bee and received a trophy. I was so excited to show my Dad. Beaming with pride, I ran to him after school with the trophy in hand. “Dad! Dad! I won second place in the spelling bee!”

“How come you didn’t win first place?”, he asked.

Not exactly the response I was expecting, I answered, “A sixth grader won first place.”

“Ok. That’s ok then. Good job.”

Ah, the joys of growing up with hard-ass Asian parents.

I told the story once and my friend said I should have answered, “I spelled ‘encouragement’ wrong”…

As we were growing up, we wanted to show our parents, teachers and coaches that we were capable; that we were competent enough to do a good job. It was important to me to be accepted and liked. In time, this extends to our peers, and later on to the girls or guys we take an interest in. At work we try to show our bosses that we’re worthy of a raise and a more prestigious title.

Often, this desire for acceptance and acknowledgment from others is so overpowering that we lose sight of what we really want. It’s like trying to plug the drain in a bathtub by filling it with water. Yes, for a while, that hole is plugged. Yet, all the while, the effect of the “plug” is slowing draining away.

Down the Drain

The very nature of wanting validation from others has a feedback loop that keeps a person looking for more validation. It’s hard to pull yourself out of this cycle, especially when there really isn’t a compelling consequence for continuing on this loop.

On the rare occasion, there will be a compelling enough consequence to break someone out of this cycle. The water bill for a few hundred dollars is overdue and you’re currently in between jobs. Yikes!

Under these “fortunate” circumstances when a break in the cycle offers a moment of clarity, one might be so lucky as to see that there was never a need to try and plug the hole. The hole was there the entire time for a purpose.

In that moment of clarity, a shift could happen where a person realizes that they are the source of their own happiness. More specifically, their mindset and perspectives are the source of their own happiness.

Now, the motivation shifts from being external, looking for validation and approval from others, to being internal, doing the right things because they are the right things to do. Experiencing satisfaction comes from knowing that you did your best, you broke through fear and accomplished something, or you stood for something you knew was right in spite of criticism.

The aim is to achieving knowing through experience. It’s a very empowered mental space when our actions are performed as a personal choice to do what is right.

Within each of us there is greatness waiting to be expressed ans shared. It’s time to get our egos and false perceptions out of the way so our greatest can be brought out into the world!

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