It seems to me that from the point of view of modern psychology, there’s an assumption that you become a proper person by socializing with others: you need to be socialized. It’s like you don’t even exist if you’re on your own. You become a real person only in relation to others. That’s insanity!
If a person goes off for one year to do retreat it’s just weird, we don’t know what they’re doing: “What the hell are you doing on your own for one year? You’re mentally ill, you know?”
From the Buddhist perspective, what underlies this is our deepest attachment: the constant craving to get a person to smile at me, which tells me, “Wow, I must be a nice person.” It’s an assumption that unless somebody else approves of me, I don’t exist, I’m nothing. This attachment is so primordial, the symptom really of a broken person.
This attachment to being seen as a good person – “to be liked by others” is the simplest way to put it – is how we verify our very existence as a real human being. The proof of success: if you can succeed in a relationship, you must be a valid person. This is how deep this attachment is.
This attachment to being seen as a nice person, to be validated, approved of is the most primordial attachment of all, and it’swhat drives most of us.
Many people are very nice and don’t say naughty words. The negative side of that is they’re terrified of people not liking them, and this is why they behave nicely. There is compassion and kindness there – these are kind people, nice people, who are Mummy’s little helpers – but the attachment to beingseen as a good girl is so tremendous, and you’re blind to it, you can’t see it.
You are kind, you are compassionate, but you wonder why people then abuse you and treat you like a doormat. It’s because you’ve got this craving to be seen as a nice girl: you need to be verified, validated as a nice girl, which is your view of yourself.
This is how deep this attachment is: it prevents us from really being authentic, it prevents us from being brave, from sticking our hand up, from saying the right thing, doing the right thing, because we’re scared of what people think. We’re terrified that they won’t approve of us.
That’s why I always quote that story about this nurse who wrote a book about the five greatest regrets of the dying. The greatest regret among the dying people she worked with was that they didn’t follow their heart, they didn’t do what they really knew they wanted to do. Instead, they did what they thought was expected of them.
This is a really serious problem in all cultures, some more than others. We call it “not making trouble.” We call it, “Oh, I don’t want to upset people.”
How do you give up this attachment? You give it up by having the courage to first check your own mind: What do I really want? Not just what I’m thinking I’ll get the right feedback from. It’s quite powerful to really see our own mind.
Say that Mary rings me up and says, “Robina, there’s an amazing teaching coming in France next weekend, would you like to come with me?” The first thing I’ll say is, “Oh, not possible, no, no, no, I couldn’t do that, my husband won’t approve, the kids won’t approve, I’ve got a job to do, I couldn’t leave work, haven’t got the money. No, no, no, no, not possible, not possible.”
No! The first thing to say is, “What a good idea Mary, let’s look into it.” And you might even find the way to do it, with courage. Instead of, “No, no, no, not possible, couldn’t do that, no, no, no.”
That’s how we mostly hold ourselves back:we’re afraid of upsetting the husband, upsetting the children, upsetting the boss, or the world vaguely: “Oh no, I won’t be getting approved of, oh, no, I can’t do that.”
We’ve internalized Mummy, Daddy, God, the police, the world in general, this vague notion of “they out there” who need to approve.
We’re driven by this, and it’s just programmed since we’re born, you know? We’ve got to really unpack this one slowly, slowly, slowly.
We need to have the courage to become our own person. I love that phrase, it’s so nice in the West: become our own person. Then you’ll be more content and more fulfilled, more brave, more courageous, and then, also, people will like you. You’ll enjoypeople, but you won’t be craving for their approval.
When you’re an independent person who knows what they want and does what they want and is content in yourself, everyone adores you. The best way to get friends is to stop craving to have friends. Now you’re courageous, you know?