Validation

A hollow currency.

We live in a time where validation has become the currency people chase. To prove that you are a certain type of individual for the approval of others. As if the opinions of people now form the basis of our existence. We chase titles, occupations, and money for the sole purpose of appearing valuable. That is why celebrities, athletes, and the rich are elevated endlessly across media outlets.

Validation has taught us to chase aesthetics and hollow dreams, often void of meaning and purpose. We have substituted meaning for robotic lives built around praise. People work in jobs they hate just to facilitate a life shaped by the optics of others. As if everyone has a camera following them and the world itself is the audience. We put ourselves in debt for the approval of individuals. We empty our bank accounts chasing unsustainable lives — buying products, accruing debt, all for the gram.

When did life become so hollow?

To prove your existence when you already exist, how ironic. So much of this is rooted in pride: the need to look better than others. As if looking down brings more satisfaction than looking up at the stars always higher, more luminous than the dullness we settle for.

What was it within myself that I was truly craving?

We think validation is the pursuit of success, but in truth it was a pursuit of permission. Permission to rest. Permission to be seen. Permission to believe I was enough. Every achievement became another receipt to prove I was worthy of existing. Even the things I claimed to do for myself were quietly negotiated through the eyes of others.

And the most dangerous part of validation? It never tells you the truth. It only tells you what keeps you performing. It rewards the mask, not the soul. The louder the praise became, the quieter I grew inside.

I mistook attention for love.

I mistook applause for peace.

I mistook being admired for being known.

Slowly, without realising, I began trading my inner life for an outer image. It took forgetting who I was to begin reclaiming myself. The frustration of being dictated to, forced me inward, to listen for a voice I had long ignored.

And when I listened, I knew I was not in the environments that aligned with me. The confusion, the distortion, and the quiet grief of knowing I was betraying myself settled heavily in my chest. That very pain forged me. It gave me the courage to leave people behind. I chose depth over approval. Quality over applause. Truth over comfort.

And in that choice, silence found me.

Peace followed.

If losing an audience of vanity was the cost of being with myself, it was a price I would pay again. I did not lose anything, I gained what few ever find. Peace of mind. Clarity of thought. The ability to wake up as myself. No performance. No KPIs to measure my worth. No forced laughter as Morse code for survival.

That was when I began to see the layers of my own character. The quiet expansion of my horizons. Curiosity returned. I realised that true wisdom lies in unravelling what was always within.

For we are created with capacity for knowledge, for discernment, for truth. We simply forget it beneath the noise. Beneath the constant opinions pretending to know what is best for us.

It is in solitude, in the honest company of oneself, that the answers begin to surface. And it is when the noise of the world quiets that the voice of God becomes clear.

Validation sought from people was the very thing holding me back.

It was God who showed me that none is worthy of my performance but Him, and even then, He asks for no performance at all. He created me as I am. It was I who caused myself pain by forgetting my own worth.

Validation taught me that I would never substitute integrity for popularity again. God loving me as I am is more valuable than the currency of praise from billions.

If this resonated with you, I would truly love to know.

I write to understand, to uncover, and to give language to what often goes unspoken.

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