May 30, 2025 • 15 mins
What if the thing you’ve been craving most, being chosen, was never the real prize?
In this episode of the Idol Series, we unpack the deeply embedded belief that being “the one” will finally make us whole. Whether it’s romantic validation, parental approval, or just being picked above the rest, many of us have built our self-worth around someone else’s selection.
But what happens when the person you wanted finally chooses you and it still doesn’t feel like enough?
We explore the roots of this longing, the toxic dynamics of conditional love, the role of modern capitalism in turning affection into competition, and how to untangle our value from someone else’s gaze. If you’ve ever waited to be picked, applauded, or seen to feel worthy, this episode is your invitation to choose yourself instead.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to So I Was Told and welcome to episode 4 of the
Idol series. Today we're going to talk about
something that lives deep in themarrow of so many of us.
The fantasy of being chosen. Not just liked, not just
accepted, but singled out, picked, preferred, made to feel
(00:22):
like the exception in a world ofoptions.
Whether it's a romantic partner who finally chooses us, a parent
who once withheld love but now sees us, or even a boss, a
coach, a friend. I think we live for the story
where someone says I want you and only you.
(00:45):
It sounds like love, looks like devotion, but often I think it
really ends up being a trap and one that ties our worth to
someone else's gaze and then calls that intimacy.
So let's talk about it. All right.
(01:16):
All right, let's talk about origin stories here for a bit.
Psychologists trace much of our chosen one complex back to
childhood dynamics. If you were the sibling who
tried harder, the student who craved gold stars, or the kid
who wanted to be noticed, you are already being wired to
equate value with validation. Developmental psychology calls
(01:40):
this conditional regard. That's when love is given as a
reward for good behavior, or it's withheld otherwise.
According to research published in Child Development, people who
experience conditional regard aschildren are more likely to
become approval seeking adults. So we grow up craving that
(02:02):
moment where someone finally chooses us, because in our
brains, chosen means worthy. Now here's where it gets
theological right? We start building our lives
around the fantasy of being selected.
It's not just about love, it's about salvation.
We idolize the idea of the One, the partner who redeems our
(02:24):
loneliness, the friend that makes us feel seen like no one
else, or maybe even the job thatfinally proves we're not a
failure. So what happens when they don't
pick us? Or what happens when they do
pick us and then later change their mind?
What results is the worst spiralever.
(02:45):
Everything that we had to keep us stable ripped out from
underneath our feet because our self worth wasn't rooted in
self, it was actually borrowed. And now that that mind has been
changed, or that job is gone, orthat relationship is over, all
that worth is gone too. This is how people become idols.
(03:06):
Not because they asked to, but because we needed them to be the
answer. Being chosen feels powerful,
right? Who doesn't want to be chosen?
I think one of the worst anxieties in elementary school
or even like, I mean, still to to this day, like, you know, do
you remember playing kickball orany sport and you had team
(03:28):
captains and they were choosing people.
Nobody wanted to be chosen last.It's like such an embarrassing
feeling, you know what I mean? That's because the notion of
being chosen, especially being chosen against all odds or
against others, makes you feel powerful.
But what we rarely talk about ishow it's also about control,
(03:51):
right? Like we're not just trying to be
loved. We're trying to win.
We're trying to beat the other options.
We're trying to feel like we're special, like we're singular,
like we're irreplaceable. I don't want to be the second
option. I don't want to be the third
option. I want to be the only option.
Sociologist Dr. Eva, and I'm going to butcher this last name.
(04:14):
Elus Elus. We'll just say Doctor Eva for
short. Sociologist Dr. Eva has written
extensively on this idea of being chosen for control in her
book called Cold Intimacies. In this book she describes how
modern love has become a capitalist system where
affection is earned, affection is negotiated, and sometimes
(04:39):
affection can even be bought. The fantasy of being chosen
reinforces that idea that love is scarce commodity, so scarce
that if we must compete for it, we will do so at any cost.
But love isn't a trophy and noneof us are contestants.
We should never be vying for somebody's love.
(05:00):
We should never be thinking thatwe need to compete for someone's
love. That's where idolization comes
in. We either realize our worth and
stop chasing what won't recognize us, or we'll be stuck
in this endless loop of fantasy and self hate because we could
never receive the type of love that we think we need.
(05:21):
Here's a twist that no one actually warns you about when it
comes to this idea of being chosen.
Sometimes you actually are chosen.
There comes a point in life where you do get the partner,
where you do get the role. You do get the title, you get
hired, the approval, you get a seat at the table, the
recognition that you sought after for years after many
(05:44):
failed relationships, after manydifferent jobs, many different
friend groups, moving to different cities, starting over
again. Sometimes you are chosen.
And somehow it still feels hollow.
Because being picked doesn't heal the fear that you're
unworthy. It doesn't address the part of
(06:05):
you that never felt enough without an audience.
This is what psychologists call the hedonic treadmill.
The concept from positive psychology where each win gives
us a spike of satisfaction, but we soon return to our baseline
level of insecurity or self doubt, needing the next hit of
validation to fill whole again. So we chase it over and over
(06:30):
again, setting the bar higher and higher, thinking there must
be something better than this thinking.
There must be a deeper level of intimacy.
There must be more recognition that I need.
But at some point, the proof stops working and the holiness
sets in. We either idolize someone or
(06:50):
something to the point where we're never getting the
satisfaction we need, or we become chosen in every sense of
the way we thought we wanted to be until we discovered that it
eventually feels the same as it did before we were chosen.
This is what we call monotony. If you ever been in a
relationship longer than 8 months, two years.
(07:13):
If we had that perfect job for longer than one year, we had the
same friend group for more than five years.
At some point, monotony is goingto kick in and you're going to
start to question whether you'rein the right spot in life or
not. Is this person really right for
me? Do these friendships really
(07:34):
uplift me, Uphold me? Is this job actually fulfilling?
I was told love what you do for work and you'll never work a day
in your life. And I thought that I loved what
I did for work, but I don't knowanymore.
I think monotony sets in every point of our life.
I don't think there's a way to escape it, especially with how
(07:57):
easy it is to be distracted by instant gratification.
In this day and age, we take forgranted our relationships, our
positions, our talents, our skills, or we compare them
endlessly with other relationships, other jobs, other
careers we see online, curated in the most aesthetically
(08:21):
pleasing way. And we wonder, why doesn't my
life look like that? Well, for starters, you don't
live your life in a 92nd edited reel with 13 filters plastered
all over it and 10 retakes into the mic so that your voice or
your mannerisms or your face is the most attractive looking.
(08:42):
You're living the human experience, and it's weird and
it's ugly, but there's a lot to be thankful for and there's a
lot of beauty in this human experience.
So how do we break the spell? How do we get out of monotony?
How do we fall in love again? How do we become thankful for
the relationships with the careers that we do have?
(09:05):
Well, again, thinking about the human experience, I think it
starts by naming it, acknowledging the need that we
have to be this chosen 1. Not necessarily rejecting it,
but asking why do I feel like I need to be chosen?
First off, desire that need to be chosen is deeply human, but
(09:30):
when it becomes a requirement for self worth, it stops being
love and starts being worship. See, no matter what in life, if
we're not aware that we can makeidols out of anything, we will
stop living our lives in gratitude for what we get to
(09:52):
experience in this human experience, and we will start
demanding self worth in exchangefor worship towards something or
someone that was never meant to fully define who we are.
See, the solution isn't shuttingdown your desire for connection.
The solution isn't to stop having fun, to stop all your
(10:16):
hobbies, or doing what you love to do in your career or in your
relationships. It's untangling connection from
competition, untangling connection from A1 sided
worship. So here are some truths to hold
when you find yourself obsessingover validation from something
(10:39):
or someone that was never meant to give it to you.
You are not more worthy because someone picked you.
You are not less worthy because someone didn't.
Love doesn't have to be earned through performance.
Let me clarify that there's a difference between erforming and
simply loving. If you love somebody, you will
(11:01):
go out of your way to know everything about them.
You will go out of your way to understand what real, healthy
relationships look like. You will go out of your way to
constantly set aside your pride or your idea of absolute truth
when you enter the space of an entirely different human being.
(11:22):
Within the context of intimacy, I like to see relationships,
especially intimate romantic ones, as a sort of covenant, not
a contract. I'm not contracted to love you.
I'm compelled to love you through a covenant, through a
promise that no matter how high my love can feel, or how low or
(11:43):
empty or invisible love can feel, that I made a promise of
presence. To know that I'm not going
anywhere because one day I wake up and I don't feel this
Hollywood romantic version of love.
And so I don't have to perform to earn someone's love.
I love because I know there is no perfect love.
(12:04):
When it comes to human beings loving one another, there is no
perfect friendship. We all at some point become
annoyed with one another in relationships, in friendships
with our coworkers, with our peers, with our children, with
our relatives. It's a universal experience that
(12:26):
at some point we all become annoyed with one another, but
see if our worth isn't tied to their validation or this made-up
role that we created. That they have to serve us.
They have to act perfectly all the time and we're always going
to be miserable. We're always going to be second
(12:47):
guessing. So realize that your worth
doesn't need a witness. Your worth is intrinsic.
That means that nobody can take that from you, that by simply
being alive you are worthy of love.
That's it. No arguments, no buts.
(13:09):
Your worth is intrinsic. It doesn't need to be witnessed.
So allow yourself to witness allof the beauty that surrounds you
in this life, and fall in love again and again and again, until
the monotony sets in, until the cycle of decay begins.
Recognize that life has lived inseasons, and every season has
(13:33):
its end, only to begin again. To die, to grow, to bloom, to
sustain, to die, to grow, to bloom, over and over again.
Life is full of constant rebirths.
You don't need to be chosen to matter.
We don't need to be the center of attention to be the center of
(13:55):
your world to matter. I don't believe that we're all
waiting to be picked. I believe that ultimately what
we're actually waiting for is tocome home to ourselves.
In this culture we love to preach self love to the point of
self obsession. All things in moderation my
(14:16):
friends. You are not a price, nor are you
a placeholder. You are not here to audition for
someone else's story. You were not valuable because
someone sees it. You are valuable whether they do
or not. So maybe the idols that you've
been chasing isn't a person. Maybe it's the idea that being
wanted would finally make you feel worthy.
(14:38):
And so then maybe the real healing is this.
Choosing yourself, loudly, quietly, repeatedly, until it
doesn't feel like rebellion anymore.
Until it feels like remembering.Because you were never meant to
be picked. You were waiting to come home to
(14:59):
yourself.
Welcome back to So I Was Told and welcome to episode 4 of the
Idol series. Today we're going to talk about
something that lives deep in themarrow of so many of us.
The fantasy of being chosen. Not just liked, not just
accepted, but singled out, picked, preferred, made to feel
(00:22):
like the exception in a world ofoptions.
Whether it's a romantic partner who finally chooses us, a parent
who once withheld love but now sees us, or even a boss, a
coach, a friend. I think we live for the story
where someone says I want you and only you.
(00:45):
It sounds like love, looks like devotion, but often I think it
really ends up being a trap and one that ties our worth to
someone else's gaze and then calls that intimacy.
So let's talk about it. All right.
(01:16):
All right, let's talk about origin stories here for a bit.
Psychologists trace much of our chosen one complex back to
childhood dynamics. If you were the sibling who
tried harder, the student who craved gold stars, or the kid
who wanted to be noticed, you are already being wired to
equate value with validation. Developmental psychology calls
(01:40):
this conditional regard. That's when love is given as a
reward for good behavior, or it's withheld otherwise.
According to research published in Child Development, people who
experience conditional regard aschildren are more likely to
become approval seeking adults. So we grow up craving that
(02:02):
moment where someone finally chooses us, because in our
brains, chosen means worthy. Now here's where it gets
theological right? We start building our lives
around the fantasy of being selected.
It's not just about love, it's about salvation.
We idolize the idea of the One, the partner who redeems our
(02:24):
loneliness, the friend that makes us feel seen like no one
else, or maybe even the job thatfinally proves we're not a
failure. So what happens when they don't
pick us? Or what happens when they do
pick us and then later change their mind?
What results is the worst spiralever.
(02:45):
Everything that we had to keep us stable ripped out from
underneath our feet because our self worth wasn't rooted in
self, it was actually borrowed. And now that that mind has been
changed, or that job is gone, orthat relationship is over, all
that worth is gone too. This is how people become idols.
(03:06):
Not because they asked to, but because we needed them to be the
answer. Being chosen feels powerful,
right? Who doesn't want to be chosen?
I think one of the worst anxieties in elementary school
or even like, I mean, still to to this day, like, you know, do
you remember playing kickball orany sport and you had team
(03:28):
captains and they were choosing people.
Nobody wanted to be chosen last.It's like such an embarrassing
feeling, you know what I mean? That's because the notion of
being chosen, especially being chosen against all odds or
against others, makes you feel powerful.
But what we rarely talk about ishow it's also about control,
(03:51):
right? Like we're not just trying to be
loved. We're trying to win.
We're trying to beat the other options.
We're trying to feel like we're special, like we're singular,
like we're irreplaceable. I don't want to be the second
option. I don't want to be the third
option. I want to be the only option.
Sociologist Dr. Eva, and I'm going to butcher this last name.
(04:14):
Elus Elus. We'll just say Doctor Eva for
short. Sociologist Dr. Eva has written
extensively on this idea of being chosen for control in her
book called Cold Intimacies. In this book she describes how
modern love has become a capitalist system where
affection is earned, affection is negotiated, and sometimes
(04:39):
affection can even be bought. The fantasy of being chosen
reinforces that idea that love is scarce commodity, so scarce
that if we must compete for it, we will do so at any cost.
But love isn't a trophy and noneof us are contestants.
We should never be vying for somebody's love.
(05:00):
We should never be thinking thatwe need to compete for someone's
love. That's where idolization comes
in. We either realize our worth and
stop chasing what won't recognize us, or we'll be stuck
in this endless loop of fantasy and self hate because we could
never receive the type of love that we think we need.
(05:21):
Here's a twist that no one actually warns you about when it
comes to this idea of being chosen.
Sometimes you actually are chosen.
There comes a point in life where you do get the partner,
where you do get the role. You do get the title, you get
hired, the approval, you get a seat at the table, the
recognition that you sought after for years after many
(05:44):
failed relationships, after manydifferent jobs, many different
friend groups, moving to different cities, starting over
again. Sometimes you are chosen.
And somehow it still feels hollow.
Because being picked doesn't heal the fear that you're
unworthy. It doesn't address the part of
(06:05):
you that never felt enough without an audience.
This is what psychologists call the hedonic treadmill.
The concept from positive psychology where each win gives
us a spike of satisfaction, but we soon return to our baseline
level of insecurity or self doubt, needing the next hit of
validation to fill whole again. So we chase it over and over
(06:30):
again, setting the bar higher and higher, thinking there must
be something better than this thinking.
There must be a deeper level of intimacy.
There must be more recognition that I need.
But at some point, the proof stops working and the holiness
sets in. We either idolize someone or
(06:50):
something to the point where we're never getting the
satisfaction we need, or we become chosen in every sense of
the way we thought we wanted to be until we discovered that it
eventually feels the same as it did before we were chosen.
This is what we call monotony. If you ever been in a
relationship longer than 8 months, two years.
(07:13):
If we had that perfect job for longer than one year, we had the
same friend group for more than five years.
At some point, monotony is goingto kick in and you're going to
start to question whether you'rein the right spot in life or
not. Is this person really right for
me? Do these friendships really
(07:34):
uplift me, Uphold me? Is this job actually fulfilling?
I was told love what you do for work and you'll never work a day
in your life. And I thought that I loved what
I did for work, but I don't knowanymore.
I think monotony sets in every point of our life.
I don't think there's a way to escape it, especially with how
(07:57):
easy it is to be distracted by instant gratification.
In this day and age, we take forgranted our relationships, our
positions, our talents, our skills, or we compare them
endlessly with other relationships, other jobs, other
careers we see online, curated in the most aesthetically
(08:21):
pleasing way. And we wonder, why doesn't my
life look like that? Well, for starters, you don't
live your life in a 92nd edited reel with 13 filters plastered
all over it and 10 retakes into the mic so that your voice or
your mannerisms or your face is the most attractive looking.
(08:42):
You're living the human experience, and it's weird and
it's ugly, but there's a lot to be thankful for and there's a
lot of beauty in this human experience.
So how do we break the spell? How do we get out of monotony?
How do we fall in love again? How do we become thankful for
the relationships with the careers that we do have?
(09:05):
Well, again, thinking about the human experience, I think it
starts by naming it, acknowledging the need that we
have to be this chosen 1. Not necessarily rejecting it,
but asking why do I feel like I need to be chosen?
First off, desire that need to be chosen is deeply human, but
(09:30):
when it becomes a requirement for self worth, it stops being
love and starts being worship. See, no matter what in life, if
we're not aware that we can makeidols out of anything, we will
stop living our lives in gratitude for what we get to
(09:52):
experience in this human experience, and we will start
demanding self worth in exchangefor worship towards something or
someone that was never meant to fully define who we are.
See, the solution isn't shuttingdown your desire for connection.
The solution isn't to stop having fun, to stop all your
(10:16):
hobbies, or doing what you love to do in your career or in your
relationships. It's untangling connection from
competition, untangling connection from A1 sided
worship. So here are some truths to hold
when you find yourself obsessingover validation from something
(10:39):
or someone that was never meant to give it to you.
You are not more worthy because someone picked you.
You are not less worthy because someone didn't.
Love doesn't have to be earned through performance.
Let me clarify that there's a difference between erforming and
simply loving. If you love somebody, you will
(11:01):
go out of your way to know everything about them.
You will go out of your way to understand what real, healthy
relationships look like. You will go out of your way to
constantly set aside your pride or your idea of absolute truth
when you enter the space of an entirely different human being.
(11:22):
Within the context of intimacy, I like to see relationships,
especially intimate romantic ones, as a sort of covenant, not
a contract. I'm not contracted to love you.
I'm compelled to love you through a covenant, through a
promise that no matter how high my love can feel, or how low or
(11:43):
empty or invisible love can feel, that I made a promise of
presence. To know that I'm not going
anywhere because one day I wake up and I don't feel this
Hollywood romantic version of love.
And so I don't have to perform to earn someone's love.
I love because I know there is no perfect love.
(12:04):
When it comes to human beings loving one another, there is no
perfect friendship. We all at some point become
annoyed with one another in relationships, in friendships
with our coworkers, with our peers, with our children, with
our relatives. It's a universal experience that
(12:26):
at some point we all become annoyed with one another, but
see if our worth isn't tied to their validation or this made-up
role that we created. That they have to serve us.
They have to act perfectly all the time and we're always going
to be miserable. We're always going to be second
(12:47):
guessing. So realize that your worth
doesn't need a witness. Your worth is intrinsic.
That means that nobody can take that from you, that by simply
being alive you are worthy of love.
That's it. No arguments, no buts.
(13:09):
Your worth is intrinsic. It doesn't need to be witnessed.
So allow yourself to witness allof the beauty that surrounds you
in this life, and fall in love again and again and again, until
the monotony sets in, until the cycle of decay begins.
Recognize that life has lived inseasons, and every season has
(13:33):
its end, only to begin again. To die, to grow, to bloom, to
sustain, to die, to grow, to bloom, over and over again.
Life is full of constant rebirths.
You don't need to be chosen to matter.
We don't need to be the center of attention to be the center of
(13:55):
your world to matter. I don't believe that we're all
waiting to be picked. I believe that ultimately what
we're actually waiting for is tocome home to ourselves.
In this culture we love to preach self love to the point of
self obsession. All things in moderation my
(14:16):
friends. You are not a price, nor are you
a placeholder. You are not here to audition for
someone else's story. You were not valuable because
someone sees it. You are valuable whether they do
or not. So maybe the idols that you've
been chasing isn't a person. Maybe it's the idea that being
wanted would finally make you feel worthy.
(14:38):
And so then maybe the real healing is this.
Choosing yourself, loudly, quietly, repeatedly, until it
doesn't feel like rebellion anymore.
Until it feels like remembering.Because you were never meant to
be picked. You were waiting to come home to
(14:59):
yourself.
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