Maybe I can illustrate this with something a little whimsical. God knows we need whimsical in these bleak times I am remembering my grandmother and what a wonderful cook she was. We looked forward to holidays when we would be invited to her house for a delightful meal. But every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every special occasion, when we would fill our tummies and push back from the table, she would say, “Well, it’s not as good as the last one I made.” Easter wasn’t as good as Christmas, and Christmas wasn’t as good as Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving wasn’t as good as birthday, and birthday wasn’t as good as last Easter, and so on back. We used to say that we wished we had had a taste of Grandma’s first meal, because every one of them had been downhill since then
Oh, but you know what my grandmother really wanted, don’t you? What did she want? She wanted affirmation. She wanted a room full of family members saying, “Oh, no, this was wonderful.” She wanted to hear her family crow, “This was superb. Nothing could have been better than this.” My grandmother wanted her ego stroked Of course Who doesn’t?