Last update: 25 March, 2015
THEadmiration: that almost irresistible force that makes us hold someone or something in special consideration. Even people who, at times, we don't even know. When we admire someone, we feel a mixture of attraction and devotion. Admiration leads to amazement and recognition of qualities that, sometimes, we can even take too far.
It is a feeling that does not always behave in the same way. For example, admiring a teacher or a movie star is not the same. There are those who see admiration as a kind of envy in disguise, a spontaneous attempt to seek in ourselves a reflection of what we like about the other person.
As we said earlier, the way we admire someone is not always the same. When we feel admiration for someone we know and who is part of our life, this can also be an act of gratitude towards the support they have given us or, for example, what they have taught us., as in the case of a teacher, friend or family member. We can also admire a person because we like his character, his personality, his way of thinking or seeing life, of facing the difficulties of life or of his physical appearance.
We can admire someone who does the same job as us and who we see as an example to follow, a role model for us to learn from him or her. In this sense, admiration becomes a kind of recognition of the existence, in that person, of qualities or virtues that are important to us. That individual becomes a point of reference, a model that stimulates us to strive and improve.
When we admire a stranger
On the other hand, when we admire someone we do not know, we usually attribute to them qualities that do not always correspond to reality and that, at times, we even reach idealize. In this sense, we can admire an actor or singer famous for their popularity or for the life we ​​imagine they have. There are those who think that even thefalling in love bring with you a certain amount of admiration for the other person.
There are people, for example, who develop this feeling thanks to the values ​​that certain people represent, and that we all recognize as positive. For example, Ghandi or Nelson Mandela are two characters who, thanks to their peaceful struggle and perseverance, have achieved very positive transformations in the world.
Even the mystery surrounding nature can arouse admiration: a sunset, an astronomical phenomenon or a breathtaking landscape can give us feelings of admiration and surprise us. Aristotle himself argued that philosophy was born of admiration, because man realized that the world around him was governed by rational laws greater than us.
Despite everything, however, there are those who argue that the greatest admiration we can feel is that for ourselves.
