If you are an approval addict, your behaviour is as easy to control as that of any other junkie. All a manipulator need do is a simple two-step process: Give you what you crave, and then threaten to take it away. Every drug dealer in the world plays this game.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the dangers of seeking validation from others and how it can lead to manipulation.
Harriet B. Braiker's quote compares an individual's need for approval to addiction, suggesting that those who constantly seek validation are vulnerable to manipulation. Just as a drug dealer controls a junkie by giving them what they crave and then threatening to withhold it, manipulators exploit the desire for approval to control and influence others, making it crucial to recognize and overcome this dependency.
In practice
In a workshop on personal development, this quote could be used to highlight the importance of self-acceptance.
The key question isn't "What fosters creativity?" But why in God's name isn't everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might not be why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle that anybody created anything.
Let me be patient, let me be kind, make me unselfish, without being blind, though I may suffer, I'll envy it not and endure what comes cause he is all that I got
The quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.
He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
What I've noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it's so wonderfully fair.
When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night's sleep for the chance of extra profits.
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