...you should take a walk outside...

I've been trying to think this through and I think I finally got it (although I've been drinking so maybe I don't quite) and what I think I realized is that only three times this week have I felt proud of myself and happy in something I've done, and my positive self-concept on each of those occasions was related to approval. The approval of me by someone else (mostly the same person). So I wonder what that means for my self-esteem (or lack thereof), when it is entirely dependant on someone else's opinion.

And that leads me to wonder if that has anything to do with my sense of priority because, when it comes down to it, professors, law schools admissions officers, parents, friends; none of them exist on a yes/no approval/disapproval platform. What you do is judged in other ways, but never on the basis of some approval that manifests in arbitrary compensation, and even if it did, you would obviously know not to put so much weight in that compensation, whatever it is, or to build it up more than it is, or to make it mean something completely different, besides.

Mostly you would just say thank-you, and go home and think about something different. Because on a Saturday night two days after two very difficult exams, you should be thinking about something different. Especially drunken different things.