Validation

The other day, I was accompanying my daughter strolling in the park and saw a few toddlers and their parents spending 'quality time' with each other. The apostroph-ied remark in the earlier sentence was because most parents were busy with their digital companions while their offsprings were being themselves, running around and mingling with other kids their age. 

One particular mother-daughter duo caught my attention. The daughter was trying to learn how to peddle and the mother was encouraging her. Seemingly innocuous, but the encouragement was tilting more towards belting out incessant instructions and was pretty obviously stressful for the child. The poor girl couldn't fathom if she should continue implementing the previous instruction or to realign with the new one. I suppressed my urge to go ahead and help the woman realize the effect that her coaching was doing to the child's psyche. The kid would have done far better without the barrage of unsolicited instructions and lack of opportunity to try her own way at cycling! 

I pondered upon the chain reaction of thoughts such behaviour triggers in these tiny tots' minds. What they believe is, their parents are at a pedestal having figured out everything and they themselves are not as adept to manage their own challenges. This essentially leads to a cycle of constantly seeking validation from your parents/teachers/peers to your actions. A very good friend once shared with me that the best piece of advice that he ever received was - 'People always display that they have figured everything out, whereas the reality is that everyone is as confused in their lives as others'. Now that also doesn't mean that one does things without any introspection. This, in my opinion, would mean that we think adequately, visualize situations (both favourable as well as unfavourable) that might arise out of the path that we take and being cognizant of the repercussions, and still tread ahead. 

Since this entire process sounds so complex, the easier route we tend to take is depend on someone else's validation of our plans, ideas and actions. It not only bestows more confidence on someone else's judgement than your own, but also makes it a habit to always doubt your ability to take rational decisions. The validation that others provide to your plans/actions are really dependent on information that you feed them which includes finite data points. The output that they provide you in return is more a result of their ability, experience and logic (which has a very wide standard deviation). Not to forget,  this validation-seeking considerably impacts your rate of decision making and not all situations allow you the luxury of time. 

What is more difficult is that once it sets in as a habit, it is extremely difficult to break this cycle of seeking validation. Conviction is not born instantaneously. It stands on the firm footing of experience. And experiences may not always be pleasant. They are a mish-mash of good and bad, pretty and ugly, resounding successes and colossal failures. Having a little faith in ourselves will take us a long way! Probably a tad bit longer than the person who validated you, thought you would go!