Someone to like you

Trying to control or change what we can’t only results in torment.
Epictetus
55 – 135 A.D.

Not long ago, there was a Peanuts cartoon featuring Charlie Brown and Lucy that stood out for me. If you aren’t familiar with Peanuts, the characters are young children, maybe five or six years old, and the story lines, though funny or entertaining, can touch on real-life issues. Lucy is a strong-willed, self-assured girl, while Charlie Brown is the kid that never gets anything right; no matter what he does, somehow it turns out wrong.

On this occasion, Charlie Brown was lamenting the fact that no one liked him. In his mind, all it would take for him to be happy was for someone, anyone, to like him. Lucy questioned the wisdom of this belief, pointing out that he was giving away control of his emotional well-being. But Charlie Brown didn’t listen; he was convinced that the only way he could achieve happiness was to find a person who liked him.

Well, Lucy thought it over and realized that Charlie Brown’s belief meant she had the power to make him happy. So she considered telling Charlie Brown that she liked him in order to make him happy, at least temporarily. But in the final panel of the cartoon, she said, “I just can’t do it.”

The cartoon was both funny and sad. It’s easy to look at a comic strip and think how ridiculous it is for anyone to give another person so much power over their well being. But before you dismiss it as fiction, I suggest you think again. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll probably recall a situation or two where you were guilty of giving someone that power — when you desperately wanted someone special to really like you.

You might have done all sorts of things to try to secure a friendship: provide favors, give gifts, offer compliments; you might even have pretended to have more in common with the other person than you truly did.

Do these techniques ever work? Not in the long run. Lasting friendship is based on mutual respect and benefit, not flattery, gifts or fibs.

But more importantly, if others are going to like you and accept you as you are, you must first like yourself. I see far too many people like Charlie Brown, looking for validation from others. You have no control over someone else’s opinion of you, so when you put your self-esteem in the hands of someone else, you’re almost guaranteed to be disappointed or hurt.

If you’re like Charlie Brown, don’t waste a lot of effort trying to get approval from others. Invest that time and energy in self-improvement. If you like and respect yourself, the opinions of others won’t matter.

We can’t control the impressions others form about us, and the effort to do so only debases our character.
Epictetus

Copyright © 2014 John Chancellor