Daily Wisdom 06-25-2003 Everyone Wants To Be Liked

From the chief executive officer to the entry-level office clerk, we all struggle down deep with being liked.Stephen Glass, the New Republic writer who was fired five years ago for routinely making things up, has come back into the spotlight with the launch of his first novel, an autobiographical piece which is fiction. But the striking thing I found in interviews and articles about him, was that he says he made up things so his boss or superiors would like him. "I loved the electricity of people liking my stories," he said in an interview on 60 Minutes. "I loved going to story conference meetings and telling people what my story was going to be, and seeing the room excited. I wanted every story to be a home run."

Mike Yaconelli, the funny and popular youth speaker for over 42 years says he struggles too with whether people will like him. In a video interview, Yaconelli said, "I have terminal insecurity. What I'm afraid of most is that you won't like me. I'm afraid my kids won't like me. I'm afraid that the people watching this tape won't like me. I'm afraid that the crew here won't like me. I mean, you name it I can find something that I'm worried won't like me. It can be an inanimate object, I'm still worried that it won't like me."Mike Yaconelli is worried people won't like him? If Mike feels that way too, we know we're in good company.

Several months ago in a Bible study, the leader gave each of us a promise to claim. Mine was from Isaiah 43: 4-5, which reads, excerpted, "You are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, do not be afraid, for I am with you."

How do we come to feel not only loved, but liked? What if every person felt precious and honored?Too often religion itself is part of the bugaboo that makes people feel like they are eternally not good enough, that they will never measure up. Yaconelli goes on, "My deep-seated fear comes from the feeling that God doesn't like me. That comes from growing up in a very conservative church where I was basically told God didn't like me. He was always mad at me, frustrated, he always wished I'd do better. I just constantly heard that voice playing to me, you know, a 'B' is fine, coulda got an 'A.' You read your Bible, but you coulda read it more. You just don't measure up. You're not good enough. You're not right. So I'm always afraid I'm not doing good enough." But finally Yaconelli got to the realization that "God likes me. Doesn't just love me. He likes me."

"Not good enough" is an easy message to give children, even unwittingly. We want our children to do better than we did-and so we frequently chide them if they don't measure up or if it looks like they're not trying. Sometimes the criticisms may be deserved, but sometimes their "failures" are because we push them even into doing things they don't really want to do or enjoy doing. They choose to play softball and we wish they'd chosen basketball. They pick a clarinet while we always wanted a child who played violin.

Longer ago parents were taught that a mortal sin was to allow their children to become prideful. One woman recalls that many people used to admire her long beautiful black curls when she was a child, but in order to keep her from becoming vain, her mother never praised her for anything. This kind of attitude and old-fashioned teaching has hurt many children. The feeling that we can never quite please our parents can be devastating.

Small children who grow up giving and receiving appropriate love usually have a very healthy attitude about themselves and in turn extend love and acceptance to others because that is all they know-at least until they get out in the school world. Even if we as parents sometimes fail them and allow our desires and wants for them to temporarily cloud over their own God-created, beautiful shining spirits, if they truly feel loved they probably will come out okay, even in spite of us!

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Contributed by Melodie Davis from her weekly columnANOTHER WAY (http://www.thirdway.com/aw/).For information on using Another Way in a local newspaper, contact:ANOTHER WAY, 1251 Virginia Ave., Harrisonburg, VA 22801-2497; or call1-800-999-3534; fax at 540-434-5556; or email me at:Melodie@mennomedia.org