I was reading up on the blogs that I follow and one in particular caught my eye. Granted the blog post that I read was directed specifically at bad friendships, but there were points made in it that got me thinking overall.
I work far too hard to please the people around me. I work my schedule around other people to meet their needs. I go to events that I don't want to go to because I don't want people to think that I'm avoiding them or that I always turn them down. I work things out to ensure that things I have to do don't get in the way of what the people around me have to do. It's like I work my whole life around everyone else instead of doing things as I want to do them, when I want to do them, and how I want to do them. I'm not saying I need to be selfish and say screw what everyone else wants, but I need to get people to meet in the middle with me and not completely re-arrange my life for everyone else to ensure that what they want works out 100% as they planned. I'm sorry, but I can't continue to work exclusively to please others.
I need to overall think more about myself. If I know I'm putting myself in a situation that's going to upset me or bring me down, I need to just avoid the situation entirely or confront the person about it, even if I know it's going to hurt someone's feelings. A perfect example is the whole previous post about me wondering if I should go this bachelorette party this weekend. I know I'm going to be doing stuff I don't enjoy and hurting my bank account in order to please a friend of mine. A real friend won't be pissed at me or judge me for thinking of myself first for one of the few times that I actually do so. She might be mad if it was just that I didn't want to go, but I don't see a true friend being mad at me for not attending an expensive event when I'm lower on cash than I'm comfortable being.
I shouldn't continue to push myself to do things to please others even if it will make me miserable, yet I continue to do so. Maybe I'm a glutten for punishment, I don't know. Or maybe I just don't like people being mad at or disappointed in me. It's something I'm going to need to work on. It's time for me to not worry about pleasing everyone and try to please myself more, even if that means having someone upset with me every now and then. I need to get over fearing what people will say or think, especially those that are supposed to be close to me and care about me.
In the past, I've also put up with people giving me attitudes over shit they were the ones that needed to get over, not me. Yet, I dealt with the attitude that was thrown my way and tried to remain neutral because I didn't want to upset them more. Screw that! If someone is going to have an attitude with me (my fault or otherwise), I'm going to bring it up then and there. I need to! I'm not saying that I should start a scene when out in public, but when some one-on-one time becomes available, bring it up immediately. Having someone talk down to me, treat me like shit, or silently be mad at me isn't something that I should ever stand for. It's high school bullshit that should have been left behind in high school. I'm 29 years old, that's far from a high school aged teenager. It's bad enough I deal with it at work because I need to keep my shitty job for the time being, but I definitely don't need that from people that are supposed to mean something to me. I need to start putting my foot down and making it seem like I actually give a crap about myself. They say you need to love yourself before you can love others, so I need to actually love myself and stop being a floor mat. I know I have my issues of being depressed to an extent, but that's no reason for me to feel like I'm not worth anything and can be treated however the hell the people around me want to treat me.
There are areas of my life that I need to work on, this is something I've known for years and have even improved over the years; however, I've neglected to work on the part of my life that needs fixing which involves those around me. The parts of my life that involves removing the bad apples and/or working on the relationships worth saving. It seems like people who take the step to improve their lives in areas that are obviously noticable corrections, they are overall happier over time. Maybe in the beginning it's hard because naturally we all like to please those around ourselves, but over time the change in their lives and the happiness that the changes brought are well worth it. I want to be one of those people that can openly admit that I took the step to make changes and can now look back on them and realize that they were some of the best moves I could have made. If I take it one step at a time, I think I can be one of those people. It's just going to take a lot of work, will power, and convincing myself of what's best.
I can do this!
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