Good Opinions
It’s very hard not to concern ourselves with what others think of us. After all, we regularly interact with people in our personal and professional lives.
The challenge comes when we base our mood on what others have to say.
The positive regard from others – respectful words, likes, follows, retweets, and so forth are nice – but when we get disappointed in their sparsity then we know we’ve disregarded Maslow’s caution.
Maslow tied that phrase to what he called self-actualized people. By transcending the need for approval, their happiness came from what he termed a serene Being-cognition. Recognizing their core nature – their is-ness (or being-ness) – led to pure joy.
When we desire the good opinion of others, we’re no longer in touch with our true nature. We’ve sided with our ego-self and are at the mercy of the whims of the world.
The path to self-actualization simply requires us to look at our choice for the ego mind and recognize it doesn’t serve us very well. By becoming the observer of our thoughts and emotions – instead of the mindless experiencer – we incur what Maslow termed “peak experiences” or moments of rapture.
Let’s challenge ourselves to seek that inner state of bliss and not the outer world of insubstantial opinion.
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