QA138 QUESTION: I’ve found that often when I do act myself, I am disliked. Then there are situations where I don’t act as myself, and I’m liked. I find the sensation of being liked more pleasant. {Of course} Recently though, I did something where I wasn’t liked and it did feel good.

ANSWER: Well, you see, when you are battling with this question, then you are still on a level of either/or, and that is not real. You have not yet quite found the knack. You see, in both instances you are the child. You are either the likeable, disarming child, or you are the angry, naughty child.

The angry, naughty child is not liked. The disarming, obedient charming child is liked. When this is the case, both ways are unsatisfactory, because you feel at times the angry child is more honest, while the other is a device. But you can only find the key and the way out when you give up being a child, when you meet the questions and the issues totally, as a man.

Then the negative feelings will no longer be necessary each time you thus express yourself in this way, because the negative feelings only cover up your uncertainty, your insecurity, your feelings of self-dislike. When you can express this on the way to becoming a man, you have come out of a dichotomy between the naughty child and the obedient child.

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