The bait of validation

There is a particular kind of bait that doesn't look dangerous when it is offered to us. It looks like attention,Compliments. Likes. Messages. Someone choosing us when we desperately want to feel chosen. Someone telling us thatvwe are attractive interesting special,desirable, successful or simply worth noticing.

Validation feels harmless because,for a moment. It gives us exactly what we were missing. The problem is that validation is addictive when we don't know how to give it to ourselves. At first it is just nice to be noticed. Then we start checking whether someone noticed.

We post something and wait. We say something and watch for a reaction. We change ourselves slightly because we discovered what gets attention. Eventually we aren't even asking,"will they like me it I do this?.

Thatvis where the trap begins. The worst part isn't wanting validation. Everyone wants to feel appreciated sometimes. The problem begins when someone else's attention becomes evidence of our worth. Ourbcompliment can make us feel beautiful.

One rejection can make us question everything. One person's interest can suddenly make us ignore the people who have loved us consistently because the attention from a stranger feels more exciting. And sometimes the person paying the price isn't only us.

It can be the person sitting beside us whilebwe chase attention somewhere else. A partner who notices that we are becoming emotionally invested in someone else's approval. A friend who keeps showing up while we are busy trying to impress people who barely know us. A family member who watches us become someone completely different because we are desperate to be accepted by a world that will forget us tomorrow.

Validation can make us betray ourselves quietly. We start hiding parts of ourselves from the people who actually know us and exaggerating other parts for people who don't. We become more concerned with being perceived as desirable than with being honest about what we actually want. And the irony is that the validation rarely lasts.

The compliment fades. The message stops. The likes disappear beneath newer posts. The person who made us feel special finds someone else to admire. Then we are left with the version of ourselves we created to receive their attention.

That is the price . Sometimes we lose ourselves.Somerimes we hurt people who genuinely loved us. Sometimes we destroy something stable because temporary attention felt more exciting than permanent affection. I don't think the answer is pretending we don't care what anyone thinks.

That isn't realistic. We are human and being seen matters.but there is a difference between enjoying validation and depending on it. Maybe the real danger is not someone flattering us.

It is when we start needing strangers to confirm something that the people who love us have been trying to tellbus all along. And eventually. We have to ask ourselves whether the attention was worth what we traded for it. Because sometimes the balt is validation. And the price we pay is ourselves - and the people who loved us before we needed anyone else to prove that we worth loving.