7th November 2024
A friend of mine was recently fretting about a boyfriend who had stopped being as interested as he was in the beginning of the relationship. She complained that the “good morning” and “goodnight” messages were becoming less regular and the random messages asking how she was, and that he was missing her were becoming irregular. She was at her wits end trying to find an explanation as how and why a man could change in the span of one month.
The only thing that struck me in this whole tirade, was my friend’s need for validation from another human and the fact that she was falling apart because of the sudden withdrawal of it. Over the past few years I have met and interacted with far too many people who require external validation. They crave external validation and without it they fall apart and even go into depression.
Validation is the process by which one person makes another feel valuable or worthwhile. It is true that, as humans, we all like to be validated. It improves our sense of self-worth or self-esteem. We are taught to seek validation through the process of socialization. As children we are praised for certain things we do and punished for others. We feel a sense of validation and approval when praised and feel upset and dejected when we are punished or reprimanded. And from there we learn to seek validation. We are willing to do things that bring us validation. Parents while trying to train or teach their children approved behavior patterns sub-consciously teach them to equate parental validation with feeling good about one’s self or being. I remember a friend who began out performing, when she realized that the only time she got parental validation was, when she scored high marks!
I have seen parents withholding validating their children until they do what parents want them to and toe the line of parental desire. In India validation of a child is more often than not, hinged to academic performance, polite and subdued behavior in front of elders and relatives, obedient behavior etc. If these expected behaviors are missing then, validation is withheld. And the child is made to feel guilty for going against expected behavior. This reinforcement of validation for certain behaviors and the consequent feeling of increase in self-esteem gets embedded in the child’s psyche. So much so that the child begins to deliberately seek out validation in order to feel good.
In India there is validation for physical appearance as well which is very strong. Children who are told from a very young age that they are good looking, beautiful, slim, tall, fair etc. grow up with greater confidence and self-esteem than those who have told the contrary. The child who has had validation withheld because of physical appearance sometimes go to any lengths to get validation for their physical appearances. My younger son is on the darker side, growing up in India and being dark skinned is not easy at all, especially in North India. He was bullied for being much darker than the fair North Indian friends, to the extent that at the young age of 7 he wanted to know how to get fairer so that he wouldn’t be made fun of. Even today though he is 18, he is extremely conscious of his skin color and is till date mocked as “kallu” (dark one) by his friends. As a mother I know that no matter how confident he is in other aspects of his of his life, he is extremely conscious of his physical appearance.
We are never taught that validation is an inside job!! That we should learn to validate ourselves and not look for others to validate us. In India we are taught to seek validation of our elders. Another strong belief in India is that, if we praise our children they will get spoilt and egoistic. This idea is so strong that positive motivation is something that is new to our society. As a culture we believe that only when we reprimand a child he will learn and praising him will make him proud and arrogant.
Let us take academics for an example. We never teach a child that he must know what he is capable of in academics. We don’t tell him that he should know how to assess himself, in the various subjects he learns and he should perform accordingly. A child is expected to perform exceptionally in all subjects at all times. In India academic performance is of utmost importance and the validation for academic performance is the highest form of validation!
Even at the work place people seeking validation from their bosses for various activities performed by them. If a specific task or event is assigned to an employee as a matter of routine; the employee expects acknowledgement for the job done, that the job was done well. A lack of acknowledgement or praise from the higher authorities is taken as a personal insult. Even adults look for validation for almost everything – work, appearance, dress, cooking etc.
We have various social roles daughter, wife, mother, friend etc. I have witnessed friends in pain and considering themselves failures because they haven’t been praised (received validation) for performing well in these roles. We are never taught that validation may not be forthcoming all the time. At that point, we have to judge for ourselves as to how we have performed in the role and pat ourselves on the back and carry on. We expect and yean for praise all the time. What we are not taught is that we will not be rewarded each time, and that very few will acknowledge what we have done for them and most will take for granted what we have done for them. By the time we realize this, half our life has gone by. And has caused a lot of heartache. That is why I feel that it is important to discuss and explain these things with the younger generation, so that they don’t have unrealistic expectations of themselves and others.
Somewhere we have lost the plot. We have forgotten that we are the single most important person in our lives. And it we who have to validate, support and motivate ourselves at all times. We are never taught, and we never teach, the younger generations that “we are enough just the way we are”! The competition is with ourselves and with the effort to become a better version of our self each day. We should be happy with ourselves and others don’t matter. We cannot control what others do or think and the only thing that we can control is ourselves. And therefore our happiness is in our hands alone!
Having said all of this, external validation is important. It gives us a sense of accomplishment, motives us to do better and continuing doing the good work we are doing in any sphere of life. It is acknowledgement for the work that has gone into and motivation to continue doing so. But the problem arises when actively seek it to the extent that we become dependent on it and we begin to miss it when it is not forthcoming. One must learn to maintain a healthy balance between external validation and internal validation, and this requires a good amount of conscious effort and maturity. This will result in the ability to accept external validation with humility when received and carry on by validating oneself when there is none.
