The Perils Of Trying To Make Others Happy

Being a people pleaser of the worst kind, I used to try to make others happy and dodge their displeasure at the cost of my own happiness. With this mentality, I created a world in which I placed my well-being in the hands of others for them to crumple like a piece of paper.
When a friend wanted to see me, i was ready, even though she ditched me over and over again. I was a sure go to. Even made fun of myself just to see them laugh. You name it i did it . While I was always available for others, I neglected to take care of, give to, and help myself.

I realize, now that my people pleasing tactics were really a veiled attempt to sway others’ judgment of and reciprocation to me. While compassion and generosity are generally positive attributes, I gave from a place of insecurity, low self-esteem, and a sense of lack, unknowingly, in an attempt to bolster my feelings about myself. That’s giving to get which is taking in the end.
Like an unspoken insurance policy, I thought that the more I contributed to others, surely, the more they would give back to me. Right? Wrong! I attracted people in my life who were more than happy to take and take and keep on taking, and I ended up depleted, resentful, and empty.

This is a perfect example of life reflecting back to me a part of myself that I refused to acknowledge. I didn’t love or respect myself and allowed people to treat me the same.

The flip side of people pleasing is resentment and hostility. Even if people did respond graciously to my efforts, I couldn’t allow myself to genuinely receive their kindness and, instead, stockpiled animosity. Because I didn’t like myself, I was numb to most consideration that did come my way. Compliments slid off of me like a Teflon frying pan. In order to keep up the pleasant, people-pleasing front, the bitterness I felt got buried until it erupted in angry outbursts or came out passive aggressively.

May be he said it right /

“I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make other people happy. Because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anybody else to feel like that.”-Robin Williams

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I HOPE..

I hope you fall in love with being alive.

I hope you pick flowers and read books and realize that there’s more to life than a snapchat & dms from people you won’t remember in a couple of years.

I hope you feel pursued, I hope you have the best of friends, and even that you get in trouble together.

I hope you make memories and take too many pictures and the only hurt you ever feel is from laughing too hard.

I hope you swim the depths of the oceans, and you feel the dirt under your fingernails when you climb the tallest mountains.

I hope you know the joy of genuine happiness, I hope you know the difference between wisdom and test scores.

I hope that you understand that you can be anything you dream, but you have to work hard to get it.

I hope you do more than sit around and complain about the things that could change – I hope you are the change.

I hope you journal and write every thought down, I hope you learn all you can, and that you stay healthy.

I hope you treat your body well, it’s the only one you have.

I hope you build up a fantastic reputation, and that you always respect it. But also, I hope you have fun, unapologetic fun. Because my love, I hope you fall in love with being alive.

milk of human kindness

I believe, every time we see an injustice being committed, there are only two appropriate reactions: be appalled, and be compassionate.

We should be appalled because we are human beings. Because every single time one of our kind threatens the safety of another, it speaks about our failure as a whole. It speaks about how our education, religion, government, media, families, and friends have failed horribly at forming another wonderful human who is capable of making this world a better place for everybody. It speaks about how we at some point took part in the influencing of another person to be hateful. We should be appalled because ultimately, the person who decides whose influence he will accept is himself, and he believed those who are hateful as well instead of teaching them that it’s not right. We should be appalled because we know deep in our hearts that we could be better than this, yet we are not.

We should be compassionate because we are human beings. We are capable of seeing the beauty in the smallest things, yet we have allowed injustice and corruption to permeate our society and ourselves. We are capable of true love and goodness, yet we choose to hate and harm. We are capable of standing up for other people; standing up against the system that breeds violence and ignorance like a virus, yet we choose to simply do nothing. We are angry until it’s inconvenient. We are angry until the protests cause traffic. We are angry until the injustice is committed against a certain sector we don’t agree with. Too many people have died because of bullying, entitlement, greed, gender inequality, selfishness, ideology, ignorance, and even recklessness. What is this world coming to? What are we doing about it?

Aren’t we tired yet? Aren’t we tired of the racial slurs and other hateful remarks? Aren’t we tired of putting the bullets in the gun of the next killer? We say, “I’m racist but at least I don’t kill people”, or “I’m entitled but at least I don’t rape people”. But every time we make a racist comment, we are committing murder; we are killing the good things in the identity of a certain person, and we are killing their individuality. Every time we make a sexist remark, an ableist remark, or any remark that is oppressive, we are not contributing to the goodness in this world. Every time we use someone’s gender or race or disability or religion to put them down, we are putting an entire sector down, and we are adding another bullet to the gun.

We are human. Have we forgotten what that means? Or have we gotten so used to using our humanity as an excuse for all our failures, that we chalk up all the horrible things that have been happening around us – and all the horrible things we have committed – to our humanity? Our humanity should be the driving force that would help us help each other. It should be the driving force that makes us wake up every day to go to school so that one day we could know enough to stand up for someone else. It should be the driving force that makes us go down on our knees and pray to whatever Being we believe in, to ask for guidance and forgiveness so we could stop destroying this world. It should be the driving force that makes us ashamed of ourselves whenever we take part in the culture that creates rapists and humiliatars and child abusers. It should be the driving force that makes us protect the oppressed from the oppressor. Because we are human, and that is both a description and a responsibility.

So what are we doing about it? Are we just going to sit around, apathetic, until we are the ones who are harmed? Those two emotions I talked about aren’t supposed to just be felt and let go. They should be felt, and they should compel us to move. They should compel us to educate ourselves and other people; to listen to different sides and opinions and engage in intelligent discourse; to extend support and kindness for the people who have been victimized, and help them demand for justice. How can we call ourselves civilized? How can we call ourselves human when all we do is turn a blind eye and choose to neglect?

Before all the divisions we decided to create, we are first and foremost human beings. No belief system or opinion could destroy that. We should hold onto it and protect it, and do our best to educate ourselves and the next generation as to what that truly means. And as the Jesuits would say, we are “men and women for others”. I believe it’s time we act like it.

I watched myself fall apart every night searching for stars between tears soaked sheets and shattered thoughts because the moon doesn’t want me too.

I watched myself crumble upon the ruins of my own destruction and mistakes as they surround me like walls suffocating what was left in me.

I watched myself scream and tear myself apart flesh by flesh as I realized why I couldn’t reach out from these walls.

I don’t want to.

I watched myself every single day trying to pick up the dregs of what’s ought to be my life. I watched my smile fade away like an old forgotten photograph.

I watched myself grow up.

There was never really a chance of eradicating the way she always feels about herself.

She feels lost.

Always.

And she doesn’t think of changing that very aspect. Being lost with yourself, with your own horrors, being lost in a world you’ve created, is indeed much acceptable in her logics rather than stepping out of the cave just to risk everything you got, break everything you are and lose yourself completely in a world that never cared and will never ever care.
This is the horror of existence.
No matter where you go, no matter how much you try to avoid the things you fear the most, it can always find it’s way to get to you.