There's a quote that's been around for years with a variation on the following: "I can only please one person per day. Today isn't your day and tomorrow doesn't look good either." It's a pretty cutting quote, actually, but kind of sums up how I've been feeling lately. Not the mean part, but definitely the pleasing part.
I am a people pleaser. I do not like to have people upset with me. I do not like to let people down. Cross that with being an introvert who wants to please people but also needs time for herself and voila!, you get the convoluted mess that is me.
Towards the end of the day today, I had a series of emails with someone that set me on edge. It's nothing major, something that I think is more the other persons issue than mine but it brought up all those feelings. The inadequacy, the old feelings of failure. I was so stirred up, by my own mind, I left work right on the dot and walked out to catch the light rail, jaywalking across the street and running across the tracks to beat the train (there was plenty of time). As I was stomping out to the light rail (pissed off, if I'm being honest, at myself, not the situation), I literally prayed these words "God, help me to get a backbone." I am a people pleaser. I am also a human and I don't always get things right. Darn.it.
The past couple months as I've begun a new job, begun a new commute, juggled my teeny, tiny job with my new job and went to Missouri for a week long mission trip, I've been finding that I'm not pleasing a whole lot of people. To be honest, I'm having a hard time pleasing myself. I'm not unhappy, I'm not super happy, I'm just here, doing the best I can, feeling defensive, plastering a smile on my face even when I don't feel like it, putting one foot in front of each other and going through the days.
I am an introverted, people pleaser...ah the complexities of me.
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