The truth about acceptance, friendship, and being our full selves
We all want acceptance.
There’s no use pretending otherwise. This desire for acceptance is evident throughout society; from our families to the way we structure our businesses and sell our products; from our close relationships to our education systems.
We are consistently reading articles, following Instagram accounts, watching YouTubers and Ted-Talkers — all guiding us on how to be liked, how to be likable, or how to make great first impressions.
The desire to be accepted is at the heart of our human DNA.
Do a quick google search and you’ll find endless online articles on the need to be accepted, about the desire to avoid rejection. You’ll find plenty to confirm that we seek acceptance from our close relationships, family, and even from strangers — not that you probably need the confirmation because, you know, we’ve all been there.
Many who have researched this would say that our fundamental desire to be accepted, to be part of a community, stems from our ancestral history and the way the primitive humans existed in a community. Kind of makes sense, I guess. If you weren’t accepted in the group, you were probably exiled and, well, a philosopher probably said, a lone human does dinner for wild animals make.
So generations of survival instinct and the desire for safety have built up to the place we are at today: this need for acceptance. While we won’t die if we go solo for a while in today's society, there’s still something desperate in the way we cling to safety — cling to acceptance — as though our entire being relies upon another's validation.
Our current system, when faced with this need for acceptance, requires either changing or hiding our selves.
This means if I have a really extroverted friend, and I feel like the only way for them to accept me is to be extroverted also, I’ll do it. I’ll change my behaviour to fit with theirs, or I’ll hide my introverted tendencies. All so that they don’t know that I’m not like them. All so that I am accepted.
I think we need a better plan.
I really think we need a better way of being.
We need to be more accepting. Each and every one of us needs to be able to look in the eyes of the other and say “I see you.”
The answer to being accepted is not in changing ourselves. We’ve all heard that before, though. “Don’t change for anyone!!!!” Easier said than done, Mum.
I want to propose instead, that the answer to this acceptance we are seeking is in us all already. Instead of trying to ‘not change’ for other people, we need to be more accepting of each other. We need to be able to look in the eyes of the other, and say “I see you, exactly as and where you are, and I accept you.”
Accept: believe or come to recognise as valid or correct
— Google.
We need to recognise the innate validity and “correctness” or “rightness” of each other. Without tags or limits to that acceptance; without there being parameters for that rightness. You are intrinsically right and accepted, because of who you are, and not because of anything that you can do for me.
You feel me?
We need to be more comfortable with difference, more okay with people who are unlike us.
I am seeking to be more accepting of the people in my world who are not like me so that they know they always have a safe space in me. At the same time, I am seeking to be more accepting of the people in my world who are like me — I am learning to encourage their likeness and unlikeness equally.
I am learning to be more comfortable with the discomfort and vulnerability of difference.
It starts with me, but it also starts with you.
This honest acceptance is what knits us together. It allows us to be our full, true selves. There’s nothing more important, more valuable, more needed in this world than your full, true, honest, real self. Everything you are is important. The world, our world, loses something wonderful when you dull your light for the comfort of others.
And comfort it is — because it’s comfort, false comfort, that keeps us separating and dividing, instead of accepting and leaning inward with curiosity. It is discomfort with curiosity that keeps us from allowing others to be their full, honest selves in our presence.
Let me say it again.
There’s nothing more important, more valuable, more needed in this world than your full, true, honest, real self.
There’s a you-sized hole in the world, that needs to be filled. Cliche, but fucking true.
Our society doesn’t need more people putting on masks.
If you struggle to fit in or feel like you have to be something to be accepted, you don’t. I’ve been there, done that. And all I can say is that it takes fucking years to leave the damage that does behind, to begin to filter the masks and find who you honestly are, and who others have wanted you to be.
If you are with your friends, seeing the people you love, don’t try and fit them into a mould or shape them to be what you need them to be — see them as they are and accept them there. Be responsible for the spaces you are creating in your relationships.
This is not a disregard for personal growth and development and the important need for ongoing change. It just means we can see that we are all growing and developing, and we are willing to do the work together. But we are willing to do the work while we fully see each other. We aren’t going to try and change one another before its time for us to change.
This is valuable.
This is the kind of life I want.
And it’s what I’m finding that real friendship, honest relationship, looks like.
Real friendship isn’t about shared stories and nostalgia and codependency. It isn’t about fun nights of wild drinking and shallow conversation.
Honest relationships aren’t about wearing masks and hiding. Our society, our relationships, they don’t need more people wearing masks.
Real friendship is the kind of friendship that says I see you. I fucking see you. I see you and I know that it is safe here to be seen by you in return. Real friendship takes all these masks that we have covered ourselves with and it sets them on fucking fire.
I’m learning to lean towards the people who I know I can be safe and seen with, who I know aren’t afraid to burn the masks they wear, the masks I wear. Those revelling in the flames as they embrace the depth and wonder of their honest self.
And it takes work, to make space like this, to remove the masks and the need to be someone else to be accepted and the need to make someone else be something else to be accepted. It takes work, but my god the work is worth it.
We won’t see a society of people striving to change to be accepted if we can live this way. Instead, we’ll see people with relationships where they are safe to be seen, where space is made, and who are committed to welcoming and accepting one another.
What kind of world do you really want to see?
What kind of person do you want to be?
