06/08/2011 16:35
Make Someone Happy
Make someone happy
Make just one someone happy
And then you,
Will be happy too!
Sappy sentiments, and at one time I believed them, really believed them. It made me a people-pleaser, as I tried to make my family happy, my in-laws, my husband, my kids, my friends. I rarely said no when anyone asked me to do something, no matter how badly I didn't want to do it. I tried to make so many people happy! I tried and tried and tried. I gave it my best shot.
But the more I tried to make everyone else happy, the more happiness eluded me. It wasn't supposed to be this way! Where's the happiness I was supposed to get out of this deal? The more I went along to get along, the more I was expected to give. It most definitely was a one-way street I was on, and it wasn't Happy Street.
I'm surprised that it took me so long to become unhappy with the way my people-pleasing was working out. If making one person happy doesn't bring a full measure of happy back to you, doesn't it stand to reason that you need to please more and more people until you get enough pleasing credits to earn all that happy for yourself? But it never works out. The happy never seems to come back in return for all that happy you granted to others.
In fact, the harder you try to make someone else happy, the less happy they, and you, become. Just as the only person you can change is yourself, the only person you can make happy is yourself. It seems, oddly enough, seeking to make someone happy only produces lack of respect. And lack of respect does not produce any happy at all.
At one point in my weight loss, I had to contemplate these realities. It became a turning point for me when I finally started to be more assertive about my own needs. That's when I started making myself happy. I found the time for me. I made time for me. I let it be known that I required time for me and others needed to respect that.
That's where happiness begins: It grows out of respect.