The Need to be Accepted

Well i was just talking to a friend of mine and was listening to her problem.Trying to give her advice on how to cope up and i figured something.
Something not just about her or me but about each one of us. Our "need to be accepted". It could be need to be accepted socially..or in a corporate world...or by your parents etc etc.... the list just goes on and on.
And that got me wondering that each one of us has a special set of people or a group in our life from whom we expect acceptance. Ad we try our best...sometimes our whole life to receive acceptance which might succeed sometimes or might end up as a futile attempt which lasted a life time.
Now while i was giving up advice to this friend of mine i realized something that we cannot rule this aspect or human nature from our life however hard it might seem.We cannot overlook the fact that we need acceptance to strive in society and to many times accept ourselves. We can argue that "why do i need acceptance form someone else..?" ..."I like who and what i am and i don't need someone else telling me that i am alright.." . You can be the most bad ass person there is but you will always expect acceptance from someone or the other. A thug accepts it from a bigger thug... in the corporate world we work hard to be accepted by our peers and bosses... As children we study hard and get good grades to be accepted by our family and friends. You cannot survive your whole life without acceptance. If you don't get it from the conventional people and methods you will find someone or something that will accept you the way you are.
Because at the end of the day everyone wants to be acknowledged for who he is.
I get the fact that you cannot expect acceptance from everyone you want. in many cases you will be accepted by only a small fraction of people in your life for what you actually are. Each one of us has a set of people who end up not accepting us for what we are but at the end of the day you need to decide your priorities.Great men ... most of them.. Einstein...Edison...Lincoln...were always ridiculed and were not accepted in the society initially for who they were and what they believed in.But they ended up finding acceptance in the work they did and their peers. Well later on the same society accepted them as heroes too.But had they not received any acceptance from any one or as long they lived they would have died a phantom death much before their actual one.
I don't say that this need to be accepted is bad. In fact i believe it is one of the driving factors which helps us conjure up enough courage after a rejection to try again to be accepted. I believe we need to have a set of people from whom we expect acceptance.This helps us grow...learn..and strive for success. Plain success without acceptance doesn't mount up to much. The only thing is that we need to be careful in figuring out this set of people. You should not expect acceptance from someone who is an irrational fool not ready to understand or indulge. You would not receive it form him..what ever you do...but instead you will always be let down.Find tat one person that accepts you the way you are ad that will make the journey a lot easier that striving all your life to be accepted by fools with hats.