You DO want to be liked.

You said you didn’t but you do.

You were said:

be kind

be friendly

be polite

be useful!

be grateful

be pleasant

be agreeable

be helpful

…or people won’t LIKE YOU

and you were said:

be cool

be pretty

be funny

be successful

be respectable

be rich

be free!

be relaxed

be fit

be clever

be educated

be informed

be strong!

…so that you’re BETTER……

so that MORE PEOPLE LIKE YOU.

(and help you and be with you and like you and like you)

you DO want to be liked.

don’t deny it. If you deny it — you REALLY want it.

 

You do want to be liked.

They taught you this much. From your earliest years.

It’s not just ‘BECOME THE BEST YOU’, which is not just for you, but for others to like you, to accept you.

Even before you took upon being the best you — you already knew,

‘don’t be unfriendly. don’t be weird. don’t be too funny. don’t be polarising. don’t be improper. DON’T BE IMPROPER. FIT THE FUCK IN. make some friends. be accepted. look cool. make the right friends. make some friends. BE LIKED’

you do want to be liked,

when you don’t care – you want to be liked

when you look mean – you want to be liked

when you are funny – you want to be liked

when you are friendly – you want to be liked

when you are strong – you want to be liked

you do want to be liked

 

What I’m saying is,

DESIRE TO BE LIKED RUNS FAR DEEPER THEN WE THINK.

we don’t give it due attention.

you want to be accepted

you want to fit in

and you want to be liked.

It traces back to evolutionary psychology.

It traces back to childhood, and upbringing.

It traces back to our culture, the social conditioning.

And it traces back to what we learn throughout our lives, wanting THIS person to like us and THAT person…

you DO want to be liked – and you don’t give this desire enough attention. Therefore it blinds you.

 

You don’t give enough attention to your desire to be liked. Consequently — you are blind to the consequences.

You don’t realise how profoundly RESTRAINED you are by this desire.

 

Desire to be liked alone will cause you too:

-be afraid of being wrong

-be afraid of making mistakes

-be afraid of experimenting

-be afraid immersing in the unknown

-be afraid of life

-be afraid of being afraid

-be afraid of BEING YOU

-be afraid of BEING

 

How does one free himself?

How does one solve any problem?

One must first look deeply into the problem. One must crave to understand it.

One must give proper attention to his desire.

One must observe the entire movement of this desire, how it manifests in life.

One must challenge the default, challenge the baseline, challenge the assumed.

The most deeply ingrained mental models run us completely – barely leaving any trace on the surface of consciousness.

DESIRE-TO-BE-LIKED is such. It’s so deeply ingrained we don’t even realise it’s influence over our lives.

One must SHARPEN his perception to witness the entire process occurring in daily life.

Furthermore – one must challenge his way of doing things, his motivations, his situation – so that a new challenge can reveal our dependence on previous mode of operation – one rooted deeply in social inhibitions.

You want to be liked – and should you challenge yourself – you should realise how this desire hinders your movements.

 

Did you not say something — because it would not be approved of?

Did you say something — because it would be approved of?

Did you do something to please someone? Did you want to please that person? Or is it what you do to bargain social acceptance?

Did you do what you wanted or did you do what you were supposed to do?

Do you get people to do what you want by telling them what you want — or by coaxing them with halfhearted pleasantries?

What the fuck are you doing with your life exactly and how much of it is to please some dead person, dead expectation, dead societal ideal?

Do you speak politely and euphemistically or do you say what you think and actually communicate someone?

Do you never polarise no one despite having opinions because you don’t actually share them?

Or do you fight with others just to please someone else, you fight the rightists to please your leftists sentiments and tribe, then you fight the socialists to please your capitalistic network – even your conflicts are insincere.

 

All this is obviously also a problem of integrity, problem of self-knowledge. You do not choose every day to deceive yourself, to deceive others… you just do.

This is why PSYCHE must be re-examined day by day, peace by peace.

Every day you want to be liked and accepted.

Every day you are inconsistent in your words and actions. In your motivations and beliefs.

 

I say:

NEVER BE AFRAID TO BE DISLIKED.

Consider this a trick.

Before you know yourself so well so that all your motivations and actions align – before that you can simply completely abandon your desire to be liked – sensible or not.

Make a fool out of yourself.

Alienate your friends and family.

Make a habit of always saying what you want.

Make a habit of always asking for what you want.

Get rid of all the polite forms.

Basically – turn your hitherto social paradigm into some fucking CHAOS!

Completely challenge every aspect of how you used to align yourself socially.

This is how you reveal your many social inhibitions. This is how you automatically challenge them.

This is how you challenge your fears, challenge your desire to be accepted, challenge your ideas about how you need people, challenge your sense of entitlement, and lack thereof… and this is how you challenge this insidious DESIRE TO BE LIKED.

 

You will likely find that those you alienated you never wanted in your life.

You will likely find that those you cared about only respect you more.

You will likely find that you are so much more polarising — and this only makes your loved ones love you more — and screening out the useless rest.

All that is however just EXTRA.

The real value is in you coming that much closer to THE FREEING SELF-UNDERSTANDING.

That’s what truly matters.