The Search for Significance

Approval Addict 57
proval of others and believed that agreeing to
their every wish would win this approval for him.
Bob is typical of so many of us! We spend so
much time building relationships, striving to
please people and win their respect. But then, after
all of our sincere, conscientious effort, it
takes only one unappreciative word from someone
to ruin our sense of self-worth. How quickly an
insensitive word can destroy the self-assurance
we've worked so hard to achieve!
The world we live in is filled with people demanding
that we please them in exchange for
their approval and acceptance. Such demands lead
us directly into a second false belief: "I must be
approved by certain others to feel good about myself."
We are snared by this lie in many subtle ways.
Our acceptance of this false belief causes us to
bow to peer pressure in an effort to gain approval.
We may join clubs and organizations hoping to
find a place of acceptance for ourselves. We identify
ourselves with social groups, believing that
being with others like ourselves will assure our
acceptance and their approval.
Many people have admitted that their experimentation
with drugs or sex is a reaction to their
need to belong. However, drugs and sexual promiscuity
promised something they couldn't fulfill,
and experimentation only left these people with
pain and a deeper need for self-worth and acceptance.
To visualize the effects of Satan's lie: "/ must
be approved by certain others to feel good about myself,"
consider the following analogy. In a person's
brain, there are both pain and pleasure centers.
Suppose someone implanted an electrode in each
center. While a gifted professor eloquently expounds
on the destructive effects of certain activities,
someone else begins to send intense electrical