A core human need is to be admired, loved, and respected. To fulfill this need, we seek approval by crafting an image of ourselves for others. This is a choice to become conditioned, trained, and controlled in exchange for a few occasional words of approval. But does it work? Is the experience of approval ever anything more than shallow? And what value does approval even have if we know, on some level, that we are not presenting our authentic selves?

Set yourself free from the social norms, the expectations, the normal ways of the world which you were taught. There is nothing you can do to be truly loved, admired, or respected. But there is something you can be: yourself.

When you are content to be simply yourself, and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

-Tao Te Ching, 8

Be the light that you are and not the false reflections. Choose the freedom of truth rather than the lies that lead to bondage. We continue tomorrow and day after that.