Who's in control of your life? Who's pulling your strings? We learned this way of operating when we were very young, of course. We were brainwashed. We discovered that feeling important and feeling accepted was a nice experience and so we learned to do everything we could to make other people like us. As Oscar Wilde puts it, most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry (模仿), their passions a quotation.”
So when people tell us how wonderful we are, it makes us feel good. We long for this good feeling like a drug一we are addicted to it and seek it out wherever we can. Just as drug addicts and alcoholics live worsened lives to keep getting their fix (成瘾物), we worsen our own existence to get our own constant fix of approval.
But just as with any drug, there is a price to pay. The price of the approval drug is freedom-the freedom to be ourselves. The truth is that we cannot control what other people think. People have their own schedule and they come with their own baggage and, in the end, they're more interested in themselves than in you. Everyone has different way of thinking, and people change their opinions all the time. The person who tries to please everyone will only end up getting exhausted and probably pleasing no one in the process.
So how can we take back control? We should guide ourselves by means of a set of values-not values imposed from the outside by others, but innate values which come from within. If we are driven by these values and not by the changing opinions and value systems of others, we will live a more authentic, effective, purposeful and happy life.
A. I's the inner self born in our mind that is keeping us under control.
B. Furthermore, if we try to live by the opinions of others, we will build our life on sinking sand.
C. As a matter of fact, people sometimes fail to understand who they are and where they are going.
D. For the most of us, it's other people-society, colleagues, friends, family or our community.
E.I think there's only one way-make a conscious decision to stop caring what other people think.
F. Therefore, we are so eager for the approval of others that we live unhappy and limited lives, failing to do the things we really want to.
