Why do people try to impress others?
In my experience, I have seen that there are five major fears that we all have that drive behavior. One of those is the fear of what other people think of us. This is a fear and program that is created early in life. The interesting thing about this fear is that it really isn’t the fear of what other people think of us, but our perception of what they think of us. We can’t read their minds, so we imagine what they would think of us if we behaved in a specific way.Another aspect of our behavior that has us struggle to impress others is the lack of self-love. Instead of going inside of ourselves for love and validation, we look to outside sources, such as people whose opinions we value. This is a formula for disaster, because when we don’t meet up to their expectation, we don’t receive their validation. It is also very manipulative on our part. We manipulate our behavior to receive the behavior we wish to receive in others.For me, the best remedies for this struggle are to come from a place of love instead of fear, and to invest more time in self-love, so that outside validation is not needed. Our fears are imagined, they are made up, and they are based on something in the future that most likely will never even happen.It takes time and practice to overcome these fears and to love ourselves enough so that we no longer look for external validation, but once we do, we can live a life of peace power and purpose. I’ve seen this over and over with the clients I coach. There is new-found freedom in not worrying about what others think. Hope this helps.
Why do people spend so much time and money trying to impress people they'll never know or even meet?
This is an important question and a good one to ask because the answer solves many of the social problems of our time. I think many people are caught up in material and instant gratification to try to satisfy themselves. It's the whole "keeping up with the Jones" "dog eat dog" game that keeps a materialistic capitalist society going. So the society itself creates an artificial sense of success and self worth by someones material possessions. It's the possessions themselves that are a symbol of wealth not actually being wealthy or rich. Now almost anyone can look wealthy even though they're probably in debt and really don't own anything at all. It's all an illusion. Looking deeper into someones life who pretends to be rich and/or uses material possessions to impress others or give themselves a feeling of worthiness, you'll probably find a fragile, stressful, unhappy existence on the edge of total collapse. It's a hard life lesson that some people go through.