People Pleasers Anonymous

Hi, I'm Confuzzled. And though I don't like to admit it, I'm a people pleaser. An anxious, worried, I-swear-I-just-have-everyone's-best-interests-at-heart people pleaser.

Here's the deal: I love to think I have a very independent mindset, a "to heck with the world, I'm me and deal with it" kind of attitude. And to be honest, sometimes I do have that mindset. When I'm speaking to my older brother, for example, who wants the rest of the world to exist on his terms--and his terms as I understand them are that people should be like him. It's very easy to have that mindset when I have something--or someone--antagonizing me. In such situations, I find it extremely easy to be antagonistic right back.

But, on the whole, I try to quietly be myself while also being a people pleaser. I've been in denial about this for a while, but here's the truth: I hate conflict. I don't like feeling like I'm screaming my individualism at the top of my lungs for everyone to hear. And I really, really, really want to make as many people happy as I can.

This occurred to me today at work, when I lamented (for the million and twenty-second time--no really, I've been counting) that I had to go into a service occupation because I had to have a job that involved working with people and I had to have a job where I felt as though I had a certain amount of influence on how happy people around me were. Most days, I enjoy it.

But today it occurred to me that I could sum up my job in two sentences: I bend over backward to make people happy and to be as accommodating as I possibly can. And I get distraught when people do not want to be happy or when I cannot be entirely accommodating.

It's a matter of guilt, I suppose. If I cannot make a person happy, I feel guilty. This leads to tremendous amounts of guilt when I can't make myself feel happy, but it leads to far worse and even more tremendous amounts of guilt when I can't make others feel happy. And the rational part of my brain (which, if you know me, is actually relatively small--but nevertheless quite vocal at times) emphatically tells me over and over that I have no influence on making others happy. Only they can determine that in the end.

Problem is, I'm entirely used to drowning out that voice . . . It's my age-old quandary that friends from all of my jobs--and especially the Writing Center--will remember: I just can't say no to anything that could help make someone happy. But I've decided--to heck with it!--if I'm going to make just one someone happy, that someone is going to be me! Any person who becomes happy as a side effect is just a positive extratonality.