I often wonder, how would you counsel someone who is addicted to approval?

Always fearful of what people might think of him or her, and always concerned over the

slightest apathy from others' fearing rejection.

Would you say to Victoria?

Well, I'd say the same thing to Victoria, that would say to me.

This is a totally universal problem, all right? This is not a small segment of people who are

wrestling with this isolated little problem. There is a paradox and irony in all of us in this regard.

We crave approval from others, and we fear rejection by others, which means that on the one hand,

we desperately want to be somebody. But on the other hand, by our craving and by our fear,

we admit we are dependent on others for the somebody that we want to be.

It's a built-in irony here. Put it another way. We want our worth, our strength, our beauty,

our accomplishments to be validated by others, and in the very moment of our insecure craving and

fearing, we are admitting we don't have much strength to be validated. But instead, we are weak,

and we need to be propped up by validation. My word, yes.

But an irony. There is an incredible lesson here. In one sense, this craving for approval and

this fear of disapproval is both an indictment of the sin of pride and an expression of hope that,

if we're willing to admit it, we already know that pride is hopeless way forward. We already know

this. We're giving evidence to it every day, and we need, we really need help from outside,

and isn't the affirmation of other people that's gone. We are trying to convince ourselves

that we are okay without help from outside, ironically by seeking validation from people outside,

who are all trying to do the same thing. But the real way to deal with this craving and this fear

of not getting it, not getting the affirmation is to humble ourselves, and to admit that our real

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