THE LOLLIPOP THEORY
Firstly, it’s not a real theory; it’s just a name I gave.
Through observations and experiences of day-to-day life, I noticed one standard behavior in myself and others which was quite recurrent.
A random analogy makes me understand this more clearly- hence the name.
Let’s create a fictional scene in our minds!
Suppose you are a kid who has gone out with his parents in a shopping mall. There are a lot of toys and chocolates, and you ask your parents to buy them for you.
But, they refuse since they are too expensive.
You start crying and being stubborn!
Your parents don’t want you to create a scene there. To make you stop crying, they buy you a lollipop (which, as far as I remember, used to be a very cheap sugar candy).
You get the lollipop and you forget what you were crying for.
As you grew older, you became smarter and stopped falling for this trap.
Now, let’s return to the grown-up world and, if possible, see something we go through every day but may be unaware enough to notice.
Let’s say someone lacks the self-confidence to do some work or, in general, lacks self-esteem, and you are someone who wants to help them in uplifting their emotional status — never give them the consolation prize!
Give them the right knowledge and skills to do that work well, and give them the appreciation they deserve.
Nobody wants the appreciation and awards if they know/feel they don’t deserve it.
Giving a lollipop that time can dangerously hurt their self-esteem even further.
People must understand that human beings don’t really find pleasure in awards, rewards, etc.
The real source of pleasure is the feeling of being worthy, being deserving, and then receiving the appropriate appreciation for that.
A word of external appreciation without the internal feeling of being worthy of that appreciation is a great insult to us because that makes us think that we are no good.
We crave appreciation but also want to earn that praise rather than being provided to us out of sympathy.
I am not sure how many of you can relate to this, but if you rewind some happenings of your life, you would most probably find situations when, although the person in front was saying something “nice” to you, deep down you knew that you were being given a lollipop!
And that’s why no matter how morally correct their words were, you weren’t feeling nice!
