We have a relative who has realized that he has been making his life decisions with an attitude toward pleasing everyone else, and is determined to turn that around this year. That can be a healthy approach or an unhealthy one. With this - as with most of life - there can be "abuses" in both directions. I am not assuming that this relative is swinging from one to the other, or that he has ever been prone to either, as I make use of the opportunity he has provided to reflect anew on this idea.
There are a lot of experiences in our lives that can prompt us to become "pleasers," and I have intimate familiarity with a couple of them, though without this particular dysfunction arising as a result. Different dysfunctions can develop out of similar causes, and the same influences that can prevent some people from finding affirmation except in others' approval also leads other people to be unable to relate to others' feelings and become self-centered, controlling or abusive.
To thine own self be true, advises Polonius in a lengthy and hasty dispensation of advice to his son Laertes as he prepares an urgent departure in Hamlet. While there is debate over the nature of Polonius' character, I believe his advice to his son to be well-intended and frequently misunderstood. To me, this maxim more properly applies to the same concept as Dale Winslow's poem, popular in the sporting world, The Guy in the Glass. Unfortunately, too many people apply this in another direction: do what pleases you.
So I hope our relative will makes his decisions rooted in respect himself for himself and others - as he has always seemed to do - and a desire to become the best version of himself, and that I will strive to do the same.
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