I think we’d all like to believe that we don’t care whether anyone pays attention to us.  We’re heroically forging our own path, and if other people don’t care about what we’re doing or think it’s important, that’s just their loss.  But if we’re honest with ourselves, I think we’ll see that the reality is a little different.

If you’re a blogger, for example, can you truthfully say you don’t care whether anyone reads what you write?  If it didn’t matter whether anyone read your writing, why would you bother blogging at all?  Just to organize your thoughts?  Sorry, but I don’t buy it.

Uh oh, now we’re treading into dangerous territory, aren’t we?  If you admitted you wanted attention from others, wouldn’t that make you a narcissist?  A people-pleaser?  A needy child in a grownup’s body?  There’s nothing good about that, is there?

The Gift of Narcissism

Or is there?  Do you suppose Michelangelo would have spent four years painting the Sistine Chapel if he didn’t care whether anyone saw it?  That Shakespeare would have written all those plays if he didn’t care whether anyone read them?  That Michael Jackson would have recorded Thriller if it didn’t matter whether anyone heard it?

My point is that the human desire for attention has gifted us with a massive amount of brilliant creative output.  If people didn’t care about being noticed by others, the world would be far poorer for it.

And, yes, that same desire has probably produced some horrors in human history.  I’ll grant you that, if Hitler didn’t care about getting attention, he probably wouldn’t have bothered to become chancellor of Germany.  Maybe he would have stayed an unappreciated artist.

But all this means is that our desire for attention, like any other human quality, has light and dark sides.  It isn’t inherently good or bad.  If we consciously harness it, it can help us do incredible things for the world.

Letting Go Of Denial

I think it’s a shame, then, that we often hate and deny our desire for attention.  Instead of acknowledging it in ourselves, we project it onto others.  “They’re the narcissists and people-pleasers,” we tell ourselves.  “I’m just doing my own thing.”  Or maybe we see it in ourselves, but do our best to keep it hidden.

What if, instead of hating it, we accepted — and maybe even appreciated — this part of ourselves?  What if we recognized that, without it, we’d be less able to give our gifts to the world?

I know, the ideal in personal growth is for your work to be an expression of your wholeness, rather than an attempt to become whole.  But there’s a reason we call that an ideal.  It’s something we aspire to, but we don’t usually achieve 100% in practice.

It may sound like a paradox, and in a sense it is, but if you want to be fully okay with yourself, I think you need to accept the part of yourself that doesn’t feel okay unless it’s getting attention.  You can’t have unconditional self-love without loving all of your parts, imperfect as they may seem.

Oh, and thanks for paying attention to me and reading this.

Related posts:

1. Guest Article At Urban Monk: “How To Build Confidence By Just Paying Attention” I know, I’m in a guest-posting frenzy recently, but here’s another one...
2. Attention Is The Best Rapport-Builder As I enjoy writing and public speaking, and generally put...
3. How To Build A Longer Attention Span (and a Change Blog-O-Rama) I’ve published a post at The Change Blog called “How...

Many of us know the story of Narcissus — the boy who drowned because he fell in love with his reflection in a lake, and jumped in hoping to embrace his image.  At first glance, this story seems to be about the dangers of loving yourself too much.  If Narcissus had only taken his attention off himself and put it on others’ needs, we tend to think, he wouldn’t have died.
 
But a mentor of mine told me a different, and convincing, interpretation of the story.  As he pointed out, Narcissus didn’t actually love himself at all — he loved his reflection.  After all, Narcissus didn’t need to jump in the lake to be with himself — he did it because he wanted to be with the image he saw in the water.
 
I’ve thought of this story lately because I’ve been reading books that are critical of personal development as part of my research for an upcoming book.  I’ve noticed that one common criticism of personal growth ideas is that, by asking us to love ourselves unconditionally, they encourage us to be selfish — to focus only on our own finances, relationships and so on, and stop helping others.
 
I think this criticism stems from a misunderstanding of what self-love is, and I think it’s important to correct that misunderstanding in light of all the negative comments we’ve been seeing recently about personal growth.  In fact, I think personal growth, in its highest form, is about moving away from narcissism — away from loving the image we present to the world — and toward loving who we actually are.  What’s more, once we fully love ourselves, real compassion for others becomes possible.
 
Why We Fall In Love With Our Reflection
 
Out of necessity, when we come into the world, we’re deeply concerned about how others — usually our parents — see us.  Because our survival depends on their willingness to care for us, we quickly learn which behaviors please them and which ones don’t, and we shape our personalities to give them what they want.
 
Unconsciously, we carry this mindset into our adult lives.  We still think we need to win others’ approval, and so we design our careers, relationships, hobbies, and so on to appeal to the world.  Like Narcissus, we get fixated on the image we present to the world, as opposed to who we actually are.
 
Because it seems like our survival is at stake, we’ll do practically anything — including hurting others — to make sure the world sees us the way we want to be seen.  Our love of the image the world sees, instead of ourselves, leads to greed and abusive behavior.
 
What Real Self-Love Does
 
When we start to love ourselves unconditionally — no matter how others see us — the need to maintain the right image falls away.  Energy we once used up putting on a pretty facade can be used to care for others.  Helping people is no longer a strategy for looking like a good little boy or girl, or showing that we’re morally better than someone else — it’s now an expression of genuine compassion.
 
This is why, I think, we see a focus on self-love in many spiritual traditions.  For example, in Buddhist metta or loving-kindness meditation, the meditator is to focus first on loving him- or herself, and then to focus on the wellbeing of the rest of the world.  Similarly, Hindu teacher Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj told his students “by all means be selfish — the right way.  Be all; love all; be happy; make happy.”
 
When we truly understand what self-love is and what it isn’t, we can see why it’s part of many personal growth teachings, and the good we can do for the world by creating it within ourselves.

Related posts:

1. Self-Honesty and Self-Love Evelyn graciously asked me to share some thoughts about...
2. The Crap Is The Gold: Embracing Suffering Robin recently said something, in one of her many...
3. Growing Into Our Humanity, Part 3: The Myth of the “Ego-Free Project” I haven’t been on the internet much lately, because...