Yearning for Attention

Everybody yearns for attention.

I believe the Human race as a whole is fixated on it. I believe it is the driving force, the motivation behind the bulk of our actions…

To be appreciated.
To be respected.
To be held in high esteem.
To be loved.

This is not a bad thing, by any measure.

So the bulk of us, spend the most of our lives searching for this, special attention that has been in our hearts and mind for such a long time, that it is the only thing we know. Some of us try and find all of it in different places; Love from the significant other, Respect and appreciation from work, Esteem from the community and audience at large… Others try and get it all from one person, or two, or best yet, a small group of people.

The ones they call “Theirs”.

After all, attention is really just attention.

As a result of this, you get the humans who have been lucky enough to be expressive in their beings; extroverts who aren’t afraid to be ‘loud’ in every aspects of their being just to fulfill their want for attention. Then you have us… Introverts who would also like some of this attention that everyone is getting but are too ‘awkward’ or ‘weird’ or ‘quiet’ or ‘etc’, that we can’t be loud.

So, we instead try to show it with our actions. We work the ‘graveyard’ shift just so that we might be noticed and that someone, somewhere would give us some attention.
That someone, somewhere will respect us.
That someone, somewhere will love us.

And when we get this…this, special attention, we give it back in full force. We try and repay what we get with all we’ve got because they’ve made us feel so special, that it is only right we do the same… right?

As a result, we don’t limit ourselves. We do everything deeply.

And sometimes, that ends up hurting us too much, even when to everyone else, it shouldn’t.

Sometimes.