Approval

I'm linking up today with Simply Free and Love. Laughter. Happily Ever After in their Coffee and Conversation Link-Up! Today's question asks, "How important is social approval to you?" The word that sticks out to me is social. Adding that word creates a totally different question with totally different issues for me! Negative or positive? Hmmm, let's work through that shall we?

I recently learned that my top Love Language is words of affirmation. Until I took the test I didn't realize this about myself or how true it really is! I feel like this mostly applies in my relationship with my husband and my family. I definitely don't feel like I crave affirmation from my peers but I guess I did alway crave it from my elders and superiors. Obviously teachers and professors. Maybe I have some weird teacher complex? Who knows. But you better believe that whenever I so much as heat up some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese I expect Chris Savage to act like he's in the presence of greatness! I think part of this stems from the words of affirmation I always heard from my Dad growing up... and still do!

Truthfully, I never felt like I craved social approval in high school or in college. No more than average I'd say. I basically had the same friends then that I do now with a few changes. I feel like I'm the same person I was then - basically I've always been an old teacher lady! My friends and I didn't party - we just had camp-outs and acted like fools - which we still sometimes do! I dated Chris all through out high school and college with only a few minor bumps in the road so that made my life easy in that respect. I can't imagine how different things might be if I hadn't been with him since I was 14 and made my best friends in middle school or earlier.

Now, here's the kicker. I feel like the biggest problem I've had with social approval has been fairly recent. When I hear the word, "social," I definitely think about all the forms of social media we are connected to. iPhones, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Blogging, etc! It's maddening, isn't it? I've seriously considered deleting my Facebook so many times because I feel like it's bad for my happiness and mental health sometimes! I guess it's a necessary evil. I love keeping up with people I otherwise wouldn't, but have recently reduced that list drastically to keep my sanity.

I hate how we only want to portray our lives as wonderful, and pretty, and effortless. We are afraid for people to know the truth. We don't want others to know when we run in the negative in our bank account, or gain twenty pounds, or have a huge fight with our spouse. We want life to be perfect and truth is, it's usually not. But that's perfectly fine because it's not supposed to be and I'm learning to be OK with that.

I have learned who and what are important in my life and I do want to earn the approval of those certain few. I want to live a life that the Lord, my people, and I can be proud of and that's all I'm really worried about right now. It's a work in progress!