Desire to impress others

[jacknine119]

Today i observed my thoughts. And every thought was about how i impress others. is it normal? I think it isn't.

[universe]

Hi jacknine119,

Maybe normal but not optimal

It's a self-worth topic. If yours is fluctuating a lot, could be a sign for narcissism. Narcissim is defined by not being able to give yourself value and love. Btw, it's a spectrum. Almost everyone is on it.

Oftentimes rooted in childhood, for example when the parents have the same problem. They'll have a specific image of their child in their head (because they want to impress others with their child) and so they only give you love if you follow this specific image. Having no space to be authentic and express yourself as a child is a good way of developing narcissistic traits in the future.

Either way. This is a must watch if you haven't seen it already:

❤️

[StarStruck]

It's common for people to have thoughts about impressing others, but if it's dominating your mind, it might be worth exploring why that is. Sometimes, it can stem from a desire for validation or insecurity, and it could be helpful to examine these underlying feelings. It could be your inner child who is trying to get validation that it lacked. Either way, you are a grown ass guy so you don’t need that validation anymore. You can live your live how you want and find people who accept you as you are. The book the subtle art of not giving a fuck is a good read on this topic. 

Edited April 27 by StarStruck

[Princess Arabia]

2 hours ago, StarStruck said:

It's common for people to have thoughts about impressing others, but if it's dominating your mind, it might be worth exploring why that is. Sometimes, it can stem from a desire for validation or insecurity, and it could be helpful to examine these underlying feelings. It could be your inner child who is trying to get validation that it lacked. Either way, you are a grown as guy so you don’t need that validation anymore. You can live your live how you want and find people who accept you as you are. The book the subtle art of not giving a fuck is a good read on this topic. 

Nice!

[Yimpa]

What do you gain from impressing others? 

[Carl-Richard]

Impress others enough so that impressing them is no longer impressive 😂

[mmKay]

On 27/4/2024 at 0:24 PM, jacknine119 said:

Today i observed my thoughts. And every thought was about how i impress others. is it normal? I think it isn't.

What exactly are three thoughts? Otherwise we can't provide a lot of perspective 

[Hojo]

I was talking with a women and she said I was a gentleman

I took that compliment home and contemplate it.

If I accept that I am a gentleman from someone I am creating a false identity around something I am not and didn't agree too, and I become a slave to that thing. If suddenly the person considers me not a gentleman and something else I would wonder what I did to make me not a gentleman anymore. But I never was a gentleman she made that up and I accepted it as true.

People cant know you anything they say of you is not true.

Accepting compliments is a lie and will only indebt you.All you are looking for is for someone to tell you something that isnt true to make you feel good. Truth is you are much better than anyone can say without doing anything.

Compliments are blaspheme to God!

Edited May 2 by Hojo

[Eph75]

@jacknine119

This is normal, most everyone does it in one way or another. The reasons matter. And what the hold it has on you is of essence. 

Untilmately it's about self-esteem. We can say that it's the perception of having a or being relatively worth compared to others.

If our self-esteem is low, there will be a need to equalize the difference. 

The lesser effective pursuit is the looking for external recognition to achieve this, or as some do, lift oneself by putting other down. 

For example, have you noticed some people constantly looking for problems with things and people, and putting these down rather than looking for how to help improving or solving problems?

You would not achieve any change in the actual dynamics, but you get a false sense of self-worth by for example recognizing others mistakes or wrong doings, or what you make up supports others being less than they are. Using this as a sub-conscious strategy to lower others so that you feel better about yourself. 

Bullying needs to show up here, one of the most brutal and obvious expressions of low self-esteem by adopting a confident facade and forcefully abusing others to gain that false sense of worth, while actually internally having a very low worth and likely many other internal struggles.

Another common manifestation is to always put others before yourself, to be a force of the good and the morally sound. Looking for others to recognize that you do good, so that you can, albeit, temporarily feel better about your own lack of worth. 

Yet another manifestation could be the building of status, pursuing a well paid job or otherwise monetary status, perhaps have a flashy or relative unusual car, clothes, accessories or style, making up that others look up to you. Essentially buying a sense of worth. A false sense of happiness, where happiness mose-so is about escaping low self-worth. 

Last example is relationships, having friends that are inclusive towards you, lifting your worth up, having friends so that others can think of you as being liked and accepted, or being able to have a romantic/life partner that acknologes to self not being some kind of failed person. 

There are many other manifestations of this. 

The problem is that your self-worth and your self-esteem will be owned and regulated by external factors, other people, the things you can buy, and so on. It's not sustainable. 

The more effective pursuit is towards unconditional self-love, absolute self-acceptance for who you are. Only then would that need to do/achieve things in the external world lose its power over your internal sense of self. 

Once that happen, you can still continue pursue a well paid job, driving a car that you like, and be for others who they need (and so on) , but you would be (more) emotionally non-attached to the outcomes of that interaction with the external.

Internally, being (more) at peace with oneself.

Of course more or less relatively/absolutely so.

Key it to do what you said you did, to observe, become aware, inquire into it, with curiosity, continue to observe, and accept what shows up. That we observe with acceptance has a tendency to shift. 

The last thing low self-worth needs is having negative self-criticism poured fueling it.

.. although that would be an effective and common way to continue to break it down, so that suffering increases, adding more urgency towards the emergence of self-love and self-acceptance. 

Edited May 2 by Eph75

[Chadders]

@jacknine119 good that you’re conscious of it. You’re not in control of your mind so if your mind has thoughts about impressing others then it is what it is. You’re not your mind and it’ll think whatever the hell it wants to

From a higher self perspective if impressing others means you are diminishing your authentic self then that is something to be aware of and to recognise that now is a good time to reconnect with the spirit because you don’t want to live like that