What do we lose when we try hard to be liked? In a college setting—which should tolerate more social freedom and individual expression than high school—perhaps the value attributed to being liked is overstated. This is especially true in the context of assertiveness and self-advocacy. Assertiveness and being annoying are often conflated, especially in the rather high-pressure environment that is college. Because of this unclear border between being assertive and being plain annoying, we might not be reaching our fullest levels of self-actualization.
This concept can be illustrated with a simple example. Say, you are in class. You have already raised your hand to ask three questions. As the teacher continues to speak, you find yourself confused and want to ask another question. But you think that others would find you annoying if you raised your hand again, and you don’t want to be perceived as that kind of student. So perhaps you don’t raise your hand, and you don’t get your confusion cleared. Maybe you do, and you walk out of class with a better understanding. In the first outcome, you definitively lose something, but what did you gain? Maintaining some abstract level of likability in this lecture hall, on this 12,000-student campus? In the second outcome, you definitively gain something, and what did you lose? A few people’s opinions, of whom you will never talk to? Of course, this scenario is isolated in the sense that it bars any logical alternatives, like talking to the teacher after class. And, of course, success is not defined nor created through a single moment. But we will all, at some point, experience moments like these, where you may need to decide to take an opportunity in the spur of the moment or to continuously put yourself out there to achieve something. These small opportunities and achievements may add up to something substantial in the future.
The first consideration to make is that we all blow things out of proportion in our heads. What might seem momentarily irritating to others is likely to go unnoticed, if not in the moment, then in the long run. Furthermore, annoyance is as much a reflection on the person committing the action as the person becoming annoyed. This isn’t to say that doing outlandish things is okay and that people are not valid for feeling what they feel. At the same time, our actions are not as magnified as we imagine.
Why do we feel the need to be liked, anyway? After all, we are all here to achieve our goals, whatever they may be, and it shouldn’t be looked down upon if we try to take advantage of the resources around us. Perhaps this innate desire to be liked traces all the way back to our ancestors, as it may have been a matter of life or death. But this isn’t the past anymore. We, especially as college students, are surrounded by almost every resource imaginable. If only we had the courage to reach for them!
Looking outside of college, this limit imposed by being liked rings especially true for women, particularly professional women in the workplace. A recent Guardian article dubbed this as “likability labour,” which essentially says that professional women are more likely to “hold back their true opinion in order to be liked.” This is a key illustration of just how rigid a hold “likability” has on many. The continuous grasping to be liked only makes the box surrounding you more impermeable. A notable caveat in this is that being liked, or straying away from being liked, is a double-edged sword. A professional woman at work who doesn’t act as the “office mom,” bringing cakes to the office every Friday, is unfortunately going to be viewed differently. She might be deemed as cold and calculating.
But for now, we are not quite yet in a rigid professional environment. We are still in a (mostly) flexible environment that promotes freedom, to an extent, exploration and unprecedented growth. It’s time to truly take advantage of this and reach for the stars. And to reach for the stars, maybe the first step to take is raising your hand in class.