Of love, hate and fear

There are days, such as today, when I wake up in the morning thinking - how many people dislike me! Yes, it is an egocentric view of the world, but one that could easily be justified by verbal jugglery. I wonder, however, what it is about the idea of love and hate that rattles me so much. Why this constant need to be told that I am loved? And why this desperate scramble to be hated by as few people as possible?

I could bring it down to the following hypotheses - 

While in College, I always justified my affinity for affection and warmth by pointing to the total lack of it during the last year of school that I spent alone; or to go even further, my lack of close friends in my school days. After completing primary school and before joining College, I had only had 'school friends'. Once I was back home, there was nobody I would like to meet or spend my time with. Hence, I began to value friendship a lot. When I came to College, I made some really great friends, and it's no surprise that most of my close friends were friends in residence - it satisfied my want for friends outside of work/study. They made me feel wanted, loved and cared for. So why the fear of being hated? Probably because I feared I'll lose them. Very often, this fear lead me to fawn and plead before them. Often, I did things which today I cannot justify - so that I could be in their good books. What has probably changed now is that I'm more willing to let go. It makes me feel lighter. The emotional baggage was becoming too much. Now, I feel I've done enough - and if I am still hated, I'm probably being judged unfairly. Hence, it is best to let people go, explore the world and then judge me in a more unbiased way.

The second, probably more potent fear, is one of being hated by people who do not know me. On one hand, I feel bad about being judged by people who do not know me. But what irritates me more is that I actually care. To put it in a friend's words, what need am I satisfying? The only reason I can find is the constant need to be appreciated. Again, I can justify this need by showing it as socially optimal. For example, if this need to be appreciated makes me do 'good' things, then what's wrong? To which another person's argument would be - if you do things for appreciation, should you even do them at all? To which I'd say that the end justifies the means in this case.

In life, as in economics, two opposites can be justified by the same person. I am not principally opposed to this urge for appreciation. I am opposed to it more functionally - if it makes me sad at times, I should not have it. I do not like this position where I am dependent on other peoples' opinions for my own happiness. I thus feel the need to embark on this journey where I make myself more indifferent to people's opinions. Honestly, it is a fine line between being more indifferent and totally indifferent. The latter I would characterise as being arrogant. So here begins another of those journeys where I am trying to figure out the alignment of my own values' compass.