Approval

In a recent article in The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman describes how to be liberated from people-pleasing:

“Great news! I found the cure for my anxiety!!” the author Sarah Gailey once announced on social media. “All I need is for everyone I know to tell me definitively that they aren’t mad at me, once every 15 seconds, forever.”

I know how she feels. For years, I possessed a remarkable superpower: I could turn almost any work opportunity that came my way into an unpleasant emotional drama, simply by agreeing to do it.

Once I’d accepted a deadline or signed a contract, there was now another person in the world who might be growing impatient that I hadn’t finished yet, or who might end up disappointed in what I produced. And the thought that they might be harboring any negativity towards me felt hugely oppressive. This same overinvestment in other people’s emotions meant I was always saying yes to things I should really have declined, because I flinched internally at the thought of the other person feeling crestfallen.

It bears emphasizing that the people you’re worried might be angry with you, disappointed in you, or bored by you almost never actually are. The liberating truth is that they’ve got their own troubles to worry about…. As the novelist Leila Sales observes, poking fun at this tendency in herself: “It’s weird how when I don’t respond to someone’s email, it’s because I’m busy, but when other people don’t respond to my emails, it’s because they hate me.”

The liberating truth about life as a finite human is that…you’re never going to please everyone, or do everything, or accomplish anything perfectly. So, what would you like to do with your life instead?

More than 40% of commercials shown during the 2023 Super Bowl game featured multiple celebrities, a nearly sixfold increase from 2010. 2024’s game was no different. Many star-studded commercials featured celebrities, including a Michelob Ultra spot featuring Lionel Messi, Jason Sudeikis, and Dan Marino, and a BetMGM ad starring Tom Brady, Vince Vaughn, and Wayne Gretzky.

Brands are leaning more on celebrities because there is “so much pressure to break out,” said one branding strategist. Celebrities help advertisers get noticed and help them tap into the buzz on social media, “because people will share that sort of thing more than they will share a product story,” the strategist added.

Celebrity-free Super Bowl ads have now become a rarity: They accounted for less than a third of all commercials shown during the game in recent years. There is a downside to the approach. “There are so many celebrities appearing during the game, and it is really hard to tie the celebrity to the brand,” said the branding expert. “It’s celebrity soup.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible encourages Christians to be discerning and to think critically. So, when faced with celebrity endorsements, it's important to evaluate the claims made and to consider the motivations behind the endorsement. Christians should not blindly accept everything they see or hear, but should use their discernment to make informed decisions.

Mara Reinstein writes in Parade Magazine:

We met Steve Martin years ago as a banjo-playing comic with an arrow through his head singing "King Tut." He's now a movie star and serious musician as well. In an interview, he recalled the movie "Father of the Bride" beating every other movie at the box office and thinking, "Oh, this month it's my turn."

The interviewer followed-up, "Does it hurt when it's not your turn?" Steve answered, "Not anymore … you have to remember that there's always going to be somebody better than you and there's room for everybody. I'm also a musician … I work with a lot of bands. I always say, 'Don't be jealous of other bands. You're just going to eat yourself up and waste time and it will get you nowhere. So be inclusive and say, ‘Great job.’ It takes a while to learn to not take it all so seriously."

Possible Preaching Angle:

The world may not call jealousy and envy "sins" but it recognizes they create issues. He's right, isn't he? It does take a while to learn to let others be praised.

Despite the massive popularity of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit in the Lord of the Rings in book and film versions, over the years, the books have received biting criticism from critics.

One early reviewer dismissed it as “an allegorical adventure story for very leisured boys.” This critic sarcastically said that we should all take to the streets proclaiming “Adults of all ages! Unite against the infantalist invasion.”

Another critic declared it “juvenile trash.”

In 1961, a third critic called it “ill-written” and “childish” and declared, not a little prematurely that it had already “passed into a merciful oblivion.”

Twenty years later, another critic, was hopeful that Tolkien’s “cult status is diminishing.” This critic also argued that Tolkien’s popularity is due to class distinctions. The intelligent “bookish class” doesn’t read Lord of the Rings. Instead, only lower-class people read it—those “to whom a long read does not come altogether easily.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

People did not see the value of Jesus, but criticized and rejected him but God made him King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Tony Reinke’s book, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You, makes explicit what many of us feel bubbling under the surface: Quietly, subtly, our phones are changing us. He catalogues the quiet catastrophe he believes our phones are causing. For instance:

We’re distracted. We check our smartphone 85,000 times a year, or once every 4.3 minutes.

We’re a hazard to others. Texting and driving make us 23 times more likely to get in a car accident.

We crave approval. Each social media moment is another scene in our “incessant autobiography.”

We idolize celebrity. Our attention drifts from the eternal toward the latest headlines and gossip.

We become lonely. Technology is drawing us apart, by design. We feel the sting of loneliness in the middle of online connectedness.

We get lost in the digital noise. The average daily social media and email output is larger than the Library of Congress.

We lose track of time. The wonder of people, plants, and nature—even God himself—gets lost in the whirl of “urgent” notifications

Wall Street Journal writer Joseph Epstein notes that the opinion poll has been around for more than a century. They gained authority in the 1940s with the polling methods of George Gallup. Now we put way too much stock in opinion polls. Epstein writes, “So endemic is polling that it feels as if what a politician does is less important than whether the public approves or disapproves.”

President Abraham Lincoln is an example of how to seek wise counsel and input from others without letting it run your life. Epstein writes:

Early in his presidency he set aside morning office hours to receive visitors, many seeking favors or attempting to exert influence, or merely wishing to shake the hand of the nation’s leader. … These visits … offered the president the opportunity, in these days before scientific public opinion polling, to get some idea of how ordinary people felt about him and his administration. Yet Lincoln, aware as he was of public sentiment, never allowed it ultimately to alter his policies or principles, which is one of the reasons he was a great man.

For instance, some critics blasted his 272-word Gettysburg Address for being too short. But Lincoln stood by the speech, and as we all know now, it became one of the greatest political speeches of all time.

Unlike Macaulay Culkin, who starred in the famous Christmas movie Home Alone, his younger brother Kieran turned down multiple opportunities to be a child star. He learned by observation that he didn’t want a life of fame—knowing it could lead to things like substance abuse, court guardianship battles, and the like.

We might be tempted to view the life choices of famous people like the Culkin brothers from a distance. But maybe we’re looking into a collective mirror. Today, fame is not just something that happens to stars, child or otherwise. Thanks to the age of social media, many of us are turning into mini-stars, with the only real difference being the size of our audience.

The leaked “Facebook Files,” which discuss the inner workings of the social media company, include data about the harm Instagram usage inflicts on the self-image of adolescents. Every child or teen faces a fear of judgment from their peers. They also fear being exiled from their social group.

However, the world of social media seems to heighten these dynamics—where almost everyone is followed by a kind of paparazzi, exposing and subjecting us to the approval or disapproval of our peers, acquaintances, and often complete strangers.

Philosopher Alain de Botton writes, “The subconscious argument goes, if I’m famous, I will be free from facing any rejection or judgment. I will have an instant and safe community.” However, de Botton says, the exact opposite is true: “Fame makes people more, not less, vulnerable, because it throws them open to unlimited judgment.”

Demi Lovato and the Australian singer/songwriter Sam Fisher recently collaborated on a piece titled “What Other People Say” that reveals this generation's realization that living for the affirmation of others cannot fill the void in our heart.

Some of the lyrics from the radio edit of the song:

Thought when I grew up

I would be the same as the ones who gave me my last name

I would not give in, I would not partake

In the same old drugs everyone else takes

I'm better than that, I'm better than that

I'm living my life so I go to heaven and never come back

But look where I'm at, look where I'm at

I'm living the life that I said I wouldn't, I wanna go back

I used to call my mom every Sunday

So she knew her love wasn't far away

But now I'm all messed up out in LA

'Cause I care more about what other people say

I used to not take chances with God's name

But it's been so long since I last prayed

And now I'm all messed up and my heart's changed

'Cause I care more about what other people say

The song so resonated with Lovato she shared, "When I first heard this song, I cried. These lyrics resonate so much with me and are super meaningful. This song is a reflection on what it's like to lose who you truly are in an effort to please other people and society."

Fischer added, "'What Other People Say' is a confession, realizing how far away you can get from who you are in an effort to be liked. It’s about the pressures of society and how getting caught up with the wrong things can change you."

Why are so many people reluctant to give unsolicited praise to others? It may simply be that we underestimate how well a compliment will be received and overestimate the cost of giving it.

In a study published in the Psychology Bulletin, researchers asked people to approach a same-gender stranger and offer a sincere compliment. The compliment-givers felt anxious prior to the interaction because they predicted their compliment would be negatively received. But their predictions weren’t accurate. Overall, they significantly underestimated how flattered, happy, and pleased people would feel about being complimented. They also significantly overestimated how awkward or annoyed the recipients would feel.

Psychologist Erica Boothby suggests, “We should think about how we would feel if we received a compliment--and remember that others will feel the same. … A few kind words go a long way.”

R. Kent Hughes writes:

There are some fathers who are sarcastic and constantly criticize their sons. I think of a certain little boy when I coached soccer. His demeaning father would run up and down the field belittling his boy with words like “chicken” and “woman.” He was the only parent I ever told to be quiet or leave the field.

Winston Churchill had such a father in Lord Randolph Churchill. He did not like the looks of Winston, he did not like his voice, he did not like to be in the same room with his son. He never complimented him—only criticized him. His biographers excerpt young Winston’s letters begging both parents for his father’s attention: “I would rather have been apprenticed as a bricklayer’s mate … it would have been natural … and I (would) have got to know my father …”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Many people grow up with that aching sense of being unloved, because of an absent or dysfunctional father. How glorious it is to be healed by the Father Heart of God.

There is the kind of dad who is stable and consistent, who provides for his family, who wouldn't dream of abandoning or abusing his family—but who never says "I love you."

Bo Jackson is still the only man to be an All-Star player in both baseball and football. Some argue that he is the greatest athlete in history. Maybe so. But that didn't make up for his relationship with his father—or lack of it:

My father has never seen me play a football or baseball game. Not a single one. Can you imagine? Here I am, Bo Jackson, one of the so-called premier athletes in the country, and after the game I'm sitting in the locker room and envying every one of my teammates whose dad would come in and talk, have a drink with them after the game. I never experienced that.

Some of the most insightful secular writers of our time have pointed out that a lot of our drive in life, and a lot of our angst and dysfunction, goes back to a fear that we are not accepted.

The famous playwright Arthur Miller (who wrote Death of a Salesman) stopped believing in God as a teenager. But, decades later, he said this:

I feel like I've carried around this sense of judgment. I could not escape it. I still felt like I needed to prove myself to others: to have somebody tell me that I was okay, that I was acceptable, that I was approved of.

He had replaced the God of Christmas with the "god" of audience approval. He was still looking for someone to tell him that he was accepted, and not under judgment. He never quite found it.

Madonna said this in Vanity Fair magazine:

All of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy. I'm always struggling with that fear ... My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. And that's always pushing me, pushing me. Because even though I've become somebody, I still have to prove that I'm Somebody. My struggle has never ended and it probably never will.

Ashley Joss was shopping at her local Target, when a book caught her eye. The 27-year old had pledged to read more books, so she picked it up, got home, and began reading. Shortly after she sat down with the book her dog barked, causing her to throw the book aside and revealing a hidden surprise--a $5 bill and a note hidden at the end of the book.

The note read: To the person who buys this book, I am having a tough day. I thought maybe I could brighten someone else’s with this little surprise. Go buy a coffee or a donut. Practice some self-care today. Remember that you are loved, you are amazing, you are strong. – Lisa

Joss was so moved by the note that she posted it on Twitter. After several of her friends shared it, the local newspaper got ahold of the story, and the Tweet went viral. Not only were people enthusiastic about sharing the story; they were motivated to take part in spreading more acts of kindness.

Joss’ dad, for example, bought groceries for a customer in front of him at the supermarket. Another follower wrote to Joss that she had been inspired to do kind acts in honor of her 19-year old daughter who passed away in a car accident a few months earlier. When people see how easy it is to make a stranger’s day, they naturally gravitate to be part of the movement.

For Joss, the note was life-changing. Every week since she found it, she has committed herself to another act of kindness. She said, “This has shown me the value of checking in with people around me and making sure that I take these opportunities to [encourage them]. I don't think we can ever do that enough."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Many people are discouraged given the present situation. Imagine the domino effect in your church, or small group, or neighborhood if you were to follow this example and send an encouraging note, or an email, or a text to someone. “Let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Heb. 10:25; 1 Thess. 5:11).

Some people know that the musicians, Taylor Swift and Kanye West, had a very public falling out in 2016. What people didn't know until recently was why the incident affected Taylor so much that she hid from the public eye. The Washington Post reports what she said in a Netflix documentary: "When people decided that I was wicked and evil and conniving and not a good person, that was the one I couldn't really bounce back from, because my whole life was centered around it."

She even describes getting into the music business for the very same reason: "We're people who got into this line of work because we wanted people to like us, because we were intrinsically insecure, because we liked the sound of people clapping, because it made us forget how much we feel like we're not good enough."

Possible Preaching Angle:

It might seem that legalism is dead and gone in this "live and let live" world, but experiences like this tell us that legalism is still very much alive. Many, like Taylor, experience a relentless drive to prove themselves “good enough” to those around them.

Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of the best-selling book How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap, has a popular TED talk video on what she calls the "checklisted childhoods." Here's her description of the checklisted childhood:

We keep [our children] safe, and sound, and fed, and watered. And then we want to be sure they go to the right schools, but not just that—that they're in the right classes at the right schools and that they get the right grades in the right classes in the right schools—but not just the grades, the scores—and not just the grades and scores, but the accolades, and the awards, and the sports, and the activities and the leadership. And so because so much is required, we think, well, then, of course, we parents have to argue with every teacher, and principal, and coach, and referee, and act like our kids' concierge, and personal handler, and secretary.

And then with our kids, we spend so much time nudging, cajoling, hinting, helping, haggling, nagging, as the case may be, to be sure they're not screwing up, not ruining their future. And in the checklisted childhood, we say we just want them to be happy. But when they come home from school, what we ask about all too often first is their homework and their grades. And they see in our faces that our approval, that our love, that their very worth comes from A's. And then we walk alongside them and offer clucking praise like a trainer at the Westminster dog show.

Talking about his hit song "Mean Old Man," singer songwriter James Taylor said,

This one was a big accomplishment, because it's a sophisticated song and a throwback. Paul McCartney called me up and said that when he'd first heard it, he assumed it was Frank Loesser or Cole Porter. I was, of course, absolutely thrilled. At one point, Bob Dylan told me that he'd been listening to [one of my songs] and really thought it was great, and that's enough for me. Ten critics can savage me, but I'll be fine as long as every once in a while, someone like Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney says, "Keep going, kid."

Possible Preaching Angles: Positive Illustration—Taylor reveals a truth that Christians should live by—when it comes to praise or criticism, consider the source. For us, the best source is God himself. Negative Illustration—All human applause (even from the important figures in our lives) has a short shelf life. We should look to God alone for praise and affirmation.

For over 100 years Michelin has not only produced high-quality auto tires but also the premiere guide to fine dining. Achieving or losing even one star in Michelin's restaurant rating can have a dramatic effect on the success of a restaurant. One famous French chef claimed, "Michelin is the only guide that counts." That's why the restaurant world was shocked when SÉbastien Bras, one of France's most celebrated chefs, declared that he wanted to be dropped from Michelin's rankings. For over 20 years Bras had been honored with three stars (the highest rating). Michelin's restaurant judges called his food "spellbinding."

But in September 2017, Bras said the pressure to perform was too much. Bras announced, "Today, I want to give a new meaning to my life … and redefine what is essential." He said his job had given him a lot of satisfaction but there was also huge pressure that was inevitably linked to the three Michelin stars first given to the restaurant in 1999. He asked to be allowed to continue his work with a free spirit and in serenity away from the world of rankings, without tension.

Bras said, "Maybe I will be less famous but I accept that," adding that he would continue to cook excellent local produce "without wondering whether my creations will appeal to Michelin's inspectors."

On August 10, 1948, a pioneering television producer named Allen Funt debuted a hidden-camera reality TV show called Candid Camera. The genius of the show is that it caught people in the act of being themselves. It produced lots of laughs, but it also offered a fascinating look into the human psyche.

In one episode titled "Face the Rear," an unsuspecting person boarded an elevator and naturally turned around to face the front of the elevator. That's when three actors entered the elevator and faced the rear. A hidden camera in the elevator captured the angst of the prankee. To turn or not to turn? Finally, a fourth actor entered the elevator and faced the rear. Without exception, the person facing the front would turn around and face the rear. The social influence exerted by those facing the rear was too overwhelming for that person to remain the only one facing the front.

After his 15 year career in pro basketball, Rick Barry had hit a remarkable 89.9% of his shots from the free throw line. But Barry also had one of the weirdest free throw shots—an underhand shot known as the "granny style" shot.

The stats don't lie—Barry's style seems to work better than the more familiar (and cooler looking) traditional free throw shot. As Barry said, "From the physics standpoint, it's a much better way to shoot. Less things that can go wrong, less things that you have to worry about repeating properly in order for it to be successful." In 2008, when Discover magazine asked a physics professor who agreed: the 45-degree arc angle and the natural backspin both increase the odds of the ball going into the net, relative to the more common method.

Wilt Chamberlain, a former NBA great who holds the record for the most points scored in one game (100), once tried it out. Over his career, Chamberlain made a pathetic 54% of his free throws. But on March 2, 1962, when he scored his 100 points, Chamberlain used the granny style approach and hit 28 of his 32 free throws.

So chances are, for many players shooting underhand is a much better strategy. So, why don't more players use this free throw style? (And why did Chamberlain give it up?) Rick Barry and Malcolm Gladwell propose a simple answer: because players are too embarrassed or too proud—or both. It looks silly, and most players would rather miss shots than look like a "granny" and score more points.

Football referees are unbiased, right? They would never be influenced by fans or football players, right? Well, according to a study football refs are often swayed by their surroundings. Michael Lopez, a researcher and statistician at Skidmore College in New York, led a study that referees are much more likely to make calls that favor the team whose coaches and players are on the sideline closest to the potential penalty.

Lopez analyzed five years of NFL games, including 1,400 penalty calls where the action happened close to one team's sideline or the other. One of the files he examined was whether referees called a late hit on a player. If one player is tackling another, you're allowed to do it while the opposing player is within bounds but not if he's out of bounds. But the bodies are usually flying into one another near a sideline. It's what's called a bang-bang play: it all happens so quickly and the refs have to make a judgment call.

Lopez measured how often these kinds of judgment calls go in favor of the team whose coaches are on the sideline closest to where the potential penalty is taking place. He found referees are much more likely to make calls that comply with what people nearest to them are demanding. In short, intimidation works. Pressure the refs, get in their face, and they will often cave into social pressure.