I will always want to look good in people’s eyes.  I know this now about myself.

For a very long time, I didn’t realize how much it mattered to me.  From 3rd grade up through my freshman year of college, my decisions about what to pack for lunch, what sports to play, what classes to take, and how much success I should shoot for all started with the same question: “How will this affect what everyone thinks of me?”

In college I read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and I thought that the novel’s main character, architect Howard Roark, gave the blueprint for how to be an adult: Never take into consideration what anybody thinks of you or your work.  Especially your work.

I spent the next few years trying to cleanse myself of any outsider’s expectations, trying to get to that place where I didn’t care about what anyone thought of me or my decisions.

I never got there.

That was frustrating and sort of shame-inducing for me for a long while until I came across a radically different line of thought:

Being a man isn’t about ignoring what everybody thinks of you.  It’s about knowing whose opinions you should value.  It’s about being very intentional with the short-list of people to whom you give the power to judge your choices.  You’ve got to pick very carefully the folks whose admiration you’re going to chase.

I had been thinking a lot about a new couch last week until I read Tara Livesay’s latest blog posts about her life and work as a midwife in Port au Prince – not far from where I lived when I volunteered in Haiti for 18 months.

I want my couch to look good in the eyes of my friends who are younger than me and make way more money.  I don’t give a shit about couches when I put myself in Tara’s eyes.

Tara’s eyes are better.

Seth’s eyes are better.  So are Sasha’s and the folks’ at StartingBloc.  My wife’s eyes are better.  Your eyes are.

Blogger/entrepreneur/crazy-person Tim Ferris famously said in his first book that you are the average of the 5 people you interact with most.

I think about this a lot.  If it’s true, who am I?  Do I like that person?  Do I respect that person?

Should I be surrounding myself with different voices?

If I’m always going to be chasing someone’s admiration, should I put myself in a different set of eyes?