Why do I depend so much on other people's approval?
Because approval is a fast anesthetic for a slow ache, and it wears off exactly as fast. Ask God for the one thing it can never give: a worth you did not have to win this morning and cannot lose this afternoon. Do the next right thing whether or not anyone claps. Approval will still feel good — it is meant to — but it stops being the floor you stand on, and becomes weather instead: pleasant, passing, not the ground.
The tradition sets yirat shamayim — the awe of heaven — above yirat basar vadam, the fear of flesh and blood: to weigh one gaze more than a thousand is where the ground steadies.
From the sources “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” — Psalm 118