"One of the most unavoidable life lessons is having to deal with the disapproval of others. Praise and blame are all the same is a fancy way of reminding yourself of the old cliché that you’ll never be able to please all the people all the time. Even in a landslide election victory in which a candidate secures 55 percent of the vote, he or she is left with 45 percent of the population that wishes someone else were the winner. Pretty humbling, isn’t it?

Our approval rating from family, friends, and the people we work with isn’t likely to be much higher. The truth is, everyone has their own set of ideas with which to evaluate life, and our ideas don’t always match those of other people. For some reason, however, most of us struggle against this inevitable fact. We get angry, hurt, or otherwise frustrated when people reject our ideas, tell us no, or give us some other form of disapproval.

The sooner we accept the inevitable dilemma of not being able to win the approval of everyone we meet, the easier our lives will become."

               Richard Carlson, PH.D., in "Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff"

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