The need for approval destroys our capacity for happiness.

In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander Thomas Merton points out that we are given all we need to be happy and yet "we are ashamed to do so. For we need one more thing than happiness: we need approval. And the need for approval destroys our capacity for happiness."

I think this is profoundly true.  I know that I daily damage my capacity for happiness by looking to the approval of others rather than to the values I actually value.  I find it especially distressing when I seek the approval of people whose values I despise and I allow the quest for that approval to make me ashamed of -- or at least embarrassed by -- the things that can make me happy.

If I were to list my addictions in order of preference, I think 'addiction to approval' would probably come in last.