Acceptance will drive you crazy
I was watching Kung Fu Panda 2, and the antagonist’s conviction and behaviors eerily parallel how I went about my life as a child — doing things for acceptance and recognition.
If you haven’t watched Kung Fu Panda 2, you definitely should. Out of the trilogy, it’s the most humanly relatable as an adult. When you’re a child who longs to be accepted, the things you’re willing to do are incredible. It goes the opposite when the people you look up to disapprove of you, the extent you’re willing to go to get “revenge” is frightening.
Acceptance continues to play a pivotal role as we navigate through life. It massively influences the changes and reinforces our behaviors and actions.
A waste of time
If you’re the 0.001 percent child who didn’t care for acceptance from your peers and grownups, this article is a waste of time. Everyone else can relate when they look back and see the effort and persistence that they’ve put in to be liked.
For many of us, it’s not that far to look back. I certainly do it every single day whether I’m conscious of it or not. Whether it’s at work, and trying to make sure my boss is aware of my work or if it’s at family functions trying to not dishonor the family in front of others.
It’s honestly exhausting to play this game for others. We play so much for others that we forget to play for ourselves.
I remember hating my office job but my parents were encouraging me to stick with it so I don’t waste my degree. They would cite other children of friends using their degree. I spent all that time and money to not work in my field would be all for naught.
Upon first reflection, I was upset that my parents would even think of such a thing. Upon second reflection, I realized they have no idea of what they’re talking about. Finally, with more reflection, they just wanted me to be secure financially — in their own minds.
They didn’t probably didn’t want others to think of me as someone who wasted money and time pursuing something that “didn’t work out”, or even worse, unemployed.
This type of thinking is quite prevalent in the minds of immigrant parents. They, unsurprisingly, pass it on to their children as well. Like a negative, soul-crushing, and hateful virus. I know that isn’t their attention, but that’s how they learned it and that’s the only way they see success.
That’s where it messes us up — because other parents’ views of acceptance are a success, we also see it as the only way. But it’s not, but if we don’t know, how can we be sure?
The risk and imagination of failing are limitless and that fear will undoubtedly force us back into the acceptance “lazy river”.
The lazy river trap
If you’ve never been to a waterpark and gone in a lazy river — you’re not missing much. It’s a big loop of circulating water, where people can relax on their tubes as it go around and around infinitely.
I’ve seen many people fall asleep on this ride and will stay there for hours. Submittal to acceptance is like going onto the lazy river — you concede to the status quo and just do what everyone else is doing.
Beauty is you know exactly what’s going to happen, no risks, and the beautiful safety of it all makes it so comfortable. Why even use any effort? Just grab a tube and kick your feet up.
That’s how it feels when you live for other’s acceptance—an infinite loop of nothingness.
The most interesting part of the lazy river is how stingy people get with their tubes. They’ll fight tooth and nail to keep their tubes, never parting with it.
That’s how we are with our beliefs about acceptance when we’re entrenched in it. We’ll fight hard to justify it. That’s how I was with friends when they advised me to pursue something that’d make me happy and that my parents couldn’t live my life for me.
I fought back with some mean words. But to sum it up, I told them that my parents have been with me for so long and they have my best interests at heart.
The only thing was it was a skewed interest of what they thought was best, and not what was actually best for me.
That didn’t stop for many years as I walked the path my parents paved for me. I don’t blame them at all, it’s all they knew. It was my fault for not believing in myself to take the leap or learn more about other things.
Eventually, I rebelled and did whatever it was I wanted to do. The lazy river almost claimed another one.
Straight rebellion
In Kung Fu Panda 2, the antagonist’s actions make his parents banish him — and it just makes it double down on evil. The antagonist went out of his way to commit genocide so don’t feel too bad for him.
For others fighting for acceptance, when we don’t get it, that negative emotion makes us do even worse things as a way to get even.
It’s a way to justify that what you’re doing is right, and their denial of it is a way for you to get “even”.
As an immature teen, I’m guilty of this. I remember doing my absolute best to court this girl. I pulled out chairs, wrote letters, made sure I walked her to her classes before mine, etc. When I found out she didn’t want to be my girlfriend, my attitude changed. I stopped talking to her, stopped all the nice things, and even made sure to say mean things to her.
I was an idiot and wrong, but at the time, it was what allowed me to cope with rejection. Years down the road, one of her friends told me that she was uncomfortable with all the gestures and just wanted to be friends first — get to know each other as reasonable people do.
I didn’t see that nor did I even have the brain cells to ask her. I was blinded by a selfish objective and the pursuit of it ultimately lost me a partner and a good friend.
I was bitter and did whatever I could to ease the pain by doing mean things to her.
This seems to be a pattern of times we are denied of acceptance from another. Rarely ever do we take it with grace. It’s like a sunk cost effect — we’ve invested and done so much already, and we can’t let it go because of that.
It’s like losing so much money on a stock but you still hold on to it for the glimmer of hope that’ll come back up. It never does, but that hope reels you back in.
It’s an egotistic and selfish fallacy that hurts everyone around us.
Asking questions is a good way for us to detach and counter against this bias. Detaching from emotions is not easy, and the questions we ask will get influenced into leading to an answer that we’ve already wanted. We need to avoid this at all costs.
We need to get back to our rational self which can distinguish reason and morality.
Start asking questions about why you’re doing what you’re doing. Keep digging until you’ve run out of answers. Then ask it from the other party’s perspective. Try to steel-man their responses — argue why their points make sense and yours doesn’t. Gain an understanding from all parties, and then see if it’s worth continuing on this path.
If you have trusted friends, repeat this process. Ask them what they think, and then ask them to steel-man the other side’s arguments. If your friends just repeat what you want to hear, it’s not helpful.
It’s cliche but self-acceptance starts within.
Start with you first
The cliches of loving yourself first before others are cringe to hear but it’s exactly what we need to do. I believe we crave acceptance because we are lacking something and need something or someone to validate us.
In everything that we do — even if we do it well, doubt will undeniably come up and we will need help with sorting it through. We can’t be fortunate to always have someone to speak with. Even more fortunate if that person is qualified to do so. You can speak to someone and they’ll reinforce your bias or deter you from continuing. You need to be selective with whom you go to for help.
If a majority of people are unreliable, it’s time to look within. We know a lot more and we’re more capable than what we downplay ourselves to be.
One of the smartest things I’ve seen a child do was take apart his toys to see how things work, and then reassemble the toy so it could work again. Most of us would either buy a new one or get someone to help us. I asked the kid why he didn’t ask for help and he said he did something similar before then walked away.
Perhaps the key is to build a threshold and slowly increase our capabilities to do things. It makes sense — start too difficult and you give up. Start too easy but not improving isn’t ideal either. We have to learn new skills over time and accumulate experience.
How does this fit back with our acceptance puzzle? It’s complicated for sure but let’s take our Kung Fu Panda example. Yes, the antagonist overreacted. But the parents did not do a great job. they went to a soothsayer and believed every word she said. Not once, did they try to talk to their son and work through it together.
Even after the antagonist’s atrocities, there was still a chance to help him.
Often, these overreactions lead to the breaking point where people will find acceptance elsewhere. It evolves to vengeance and hatred, which spirals out of control and rarely ever gets resolved peacefully.
If you’re a parent with a rebellious kid, I’m letting you know that yelling at them doesn’t solve anything. It’s tough to have those difficult conversations and egos will clash. But ask yourself if losing your precious relationships is more important than having tough conversations that can save your relationships.
If no one will start this process, why can’t it be ourselves?
I leave you with this quote from Kung Fu Panda 2:
“ Your story may not have such a happy beginning, but that doesn’t make you who you are. It is the rest of your story, who you *choose* to be.”
Check out my last article on How to develop a snitch culture*
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