External Validation, Do You Need It?

Imagine a world existing where other people’s values and opinions mattered more than your own. Picture a scenario where your life is always under examination to see whether or not you measure up. Opine the possibility of forcing yourself to fit in with everybody because you are so desperate to maintain their approval. See the audacity of the crowd to determine whether or not you are actually valid! These, my friends, are the trappings and trimmings of external validation or the need for it. External validation literally means you may not be valid unless another person agrees. Some other soul not living in your body gets to determine if you have validity as a human, as a man, as a husband, as a father… Indeed imagine. Yet for all of its incredibly obvious character traits, we still fall back into the trap of trying to prove our value to someone else. Sure we are all pack animals loving  community, but our need for community and belonging should not come at the expense of our own self value; our own self determined, only one vote, private estimation, of ourselves. That is one vote you never trade away. Do you really need external validation? I’ll let you decide.

This old world has done a bang up job of convincing us that we need other people’s approval in order to be okay. I know what you’re thinking? “I don’t need anyone’s approval!” Maybe not, but that approval comes in a variety of very slippery shapes and forms. Often when we say we don’t need someone’s approval, we mean one person here and there. But, what we fail to admit is that we do need the majority opinion or at least we think we do. My point? Simply that you do not need to be validated by any other human being or even large groups of them. These community or societal blockers exist for no other reason than to keep people in place. God forbid you should act on an original idea that no one else believes in! Heaven forbid that you should seek to chart your own path when there are so many well chartered paths pre-made for you. The person who becomes completely exempt from the chains and claims of validation is a person who becomes free. Otherwise, we continue to exist canvasing for votes in the great Validation election; the one where good folks get to vote on whether or not you have any value in the world. There is really only One whose opinion matters and that is God. Once things are eternally straight with Him, there is no one left to impress, prove, justify, explain yourself to or defend against. You already won. Understanding this will lift a burden of a hundred years off your shoulders. You don’t have to spend another day, another moment making yourself okay in someone else’s eyes. You are already okay. Should you choose to bless them and love them, that is on you. But you do not owe them anything, but to love them. That you owe out of your debt to Him who loved you. You don’t owe anyone a need for their validation either in any form in any way. Validate yourself!

I cannot think there is a worse life you could live inside your own heart than one where you have to make everyone happy. Impressing and courting approval is a game you cannot ever win. As long as your own personal value can be influenced by someone else or some important group, you have not yet broken free from the bondage of external validation. All of that pretending to be someone else at work, at home, on the weekends is exhausting. And no matter how much you are up for the job, no matter how disciplined you are to continue the charade, there literally is no end point. You won’t ever arrive. You won’t get there. You won’t find your stop! How could there be if your soul needed their soul to make you alright? Their values, opinions, judgments, oddities, quirks, errors, love and hates all must somehow combine to find you valuable, indeed valid? And to carry the hilarity out further, you must have to naturally consider them superior to yourself or why would their ballot matter so dearly. If the whole world opposed you, but you already found Him, you would still be just fine. Somewhere somehow you have to break out of those thinking patterns that have convinced you of a need for any external validation. We all got the same message. But, we all don’t have to accept it. External validation is slavery.

Sometimes as you live your life, you don’t see something for many, many years. Maybe you weren’t ready or else the time wasn’t right. Perhaps you saw it but did not want to challenge it. Maybe you did not think you were strong enough for it yet. It doesn’t matter. What matters is when those precious moments of clarity happen, illuminating your path to some hidden variable when finally wrangled, will lead your life in an entirely different direction. The pure fresh air of being yourself gets back into the driver’s seat. Now you are driving your own bus and having the main say in which direction you head. All of the uniqueness that is you comes rushing to the surface and what a blessing it is to all of us. Thank God for those solitary dreamers that dream of another way, a smoother path, a gentler ride, a blessed existence. For theirs is the kingdom of God. Keep fighting. I love you.

Just some good thoughts…