āEverywhere I go Iām paralyzed,ā Gina said. āIām so afraid of everybodyās disapproval that I canāt make any decisions. Why do I need everybody to accept me?ā
āOh, thatās not complicated,ā I said. āAll your life you had NOBODY who accepted you unconditionally. That was more painful than you could stand, and it seemed logical to you that the solution to nobody accepting you was to try to get everybody to accept you.ā
āNever thought of it that way.ā
āProblem is that you can never get everybody to like you. People are just too different. They like different things, and even if you could get most of them to like you, it couldnāt last. It would be utterly exhausting, and in the end all youād have is a little conditional acceptance. Youād give everything you have for nothing.ā
The solution to not feeling accepted is not to win the acceptance of everybody. The solution is simply to be yourselfāto be open and truthfulāand find the few people who can understand you and who have the ability to love you unconditionally. The unconditional love of just a few peopleāeven one personāis worth more than the conditional acceptance of hundreds.