As I continue my blog, my true confessions, what has seemed to become “my personal advice column”, I really have begun to enjoy the comments I receive (so please continue to send them! I particularly enjoy the ideas for new day “columns”). The feedback is remarkable and I am so flattered that so many people have connected with my resonating thoughts; what I call my brain echoes. Hope I continue to please, because I am a pleaser.
A pleaser is a person who simply wants others to be happy or so I once believed. I’ve always thought this was a great thing to make others cheerful until I saw that Dr. Phil says it’s an addiction. OH come on, an addiction? Well, with my background, I guess I was destined to have one addiction or another.
According to the new psychological definition, I am one who is unlikely to stop and evaluate my own needs before others (true; sometimes); I need approval and recognition (ok, true again; is there someone who doesn’t need it?); usually endured early childhood abuse (ok, once I again, I admit, my category);blame others for not appreciating them (nope; this one doesn’t work for me); unable to ‘put your foot down and say no’ (definitely not me!)
Ok, so you won’t see my picture in Wikipedia next to the definition of “people pleaser”. But I have a simple question, “when did everything become an addiction, a negative description for armchair psychologists to qualify and quantify?
Our society is filled with people and people have problems from time to time; or all the time; we’re an emotional lot; after all we’re the only species that kills our own kind for no reason. Some problems are large and others small but people are complicated animals and we, as a group, have survived eons without quantifying all of our personal identity issues. My question is, will it make you happier to know that you have an identified and quantifiable issue? I think I feel worse knowing that once I was a nice person, doing for others, and now I am a sad addicted individual only responding to others for the wrong reason.
New areas of negative focus are delivered by mass media each day. Am I better off knowing about my PMS (if they find a cure, maybe, but I am so past that stage in life, so what, I survived). What about my need for understanding my personal psyche; do I really need that?
A long time I ago I read somewhere that introspection stinks but I think that is the only way to understand yourself and enjoy who you are. I am tired of being defined by others when the most important opinion of who I am is mine and mine alone (are you ok with that, hope so).
Let’ s revolt; let’s say we don’t care what diagnosis of our psyche is someone else’s; let’s say we like being us even if it means society has given us a moniker less desirable than others. I am a people pleaser…did I please you today? If so, then I guess I am happy.
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