Pleasing Others

“It’s none of my business what you think of me.”
—Unknown

Some of us worry about what others think and try to please them with our actions.

We can’t please everybody, no matter what we do. There will always be those who think we should do things a certain way even when we have been successful in the way we did them.

A lot of us still try to please our parents even as adults we may still use what they think as a barometer of how we should carry on our lives. Some of us do this knowing that they are dysfunctional and probably won’t ever “approve” of what we do but we try to please them anyway. It’s quite futile to think we can get anywhere this way.

Often those who begin Twelve Step programs or go to treatment find family members, spouses, and others less than thrilled. This is usually attributed to fear of change. Those left behind know that life as they knew it won’t be the same anymore, even though the person is going to have a better life.  If we are taking care of ourselves in a healthy way, we must forge on and try not to worry about what they think.

What matters most is what we think of ourselves. Are we working on being better people? Do we try to do the right thing even when it’s difficult? Are we free of addictions and other things that are not healthy for us? If we feel good about where we are today and where we may be in the future, that’s a positive that we can hang our hat on. The rest, what they think, well, it’s really not our business.

If you believe in yourself you’re already a winner.

Giving Life a Chance

“Life is like a trumpet — if you don’t put anything into it, you don’t get anything out of it.”
—William Christopher Handy

I often hear people comment that they don’t have this or that in life. Sometimes someone will say I wish I had time to work out. Or I wish I could play the piano, or I wish I had money for a trip.

All of these things are possible. We get out of life what we put in. If something is important to us we make time for it. If we don’t have money for a trip, we could always get a second job and earn some extra cash for a trip later. If we want to play piano, we take lessons and practice, not many people just sit down at a piano and play perfectly without years of practice and training.

And what about folks who claim they don’t have friends and don’t have anything to do. For those people it’s a matter of getting involved in something. Plug into a church or some other organization where people frequently meet. Don’t just show up at church or a meeting, become involved. Give a bit of yourself and it will return many times over to you.

Sitting back in life and waiting for something to happen is not likely going to be successful. What will work is putting something into life and giving to others of our time, a listening ear, a hug, or whatever the need is that is a healthy thing for us to do.

You get much more than you give, but you get nothing if you don’t give something.

Expectations

“Anger always comes from frustrated expectations.”
—Elliott Larson

It is difficult to go into any situation having no expectations. When we enter into any relationship, whether it is work related or personal, we want certain things. But our expectations may be far off from those on the other side of the relationship.

What’s especially difficult and frustrating is when there is a lack of communication in the situation, when not only are we not getting our needs met as expected, but the other person is not capable of entering into conversation about the relationship.

It isn’t fair to become angry when another person does not meet the needs that we expected. We simply need to allow that person to be who they are and do what they do. If we need to move on we do that. If we need to adjust our expectations we can do that as well, but we don’t try to demand that they become someone they are not simply because of our expectations.

The best way to enter into any relationship is to not have expectations. Often our expectations can cause a relationship to fail before we even give it a chance. If we want more from someone than they are willing or able to give, we have choices about that situation. We can try to demand more and if not given our desires we move on. Or we can allow the other person to give what they are able and not demand more. Then we seek to have those needs met from other people.

Perhaps we need to be more forthcoming about our needs in a relationship if we are finding ourselves frustrated or angry with the other person. Maybe if they knew what we wanted they would be more able to meet those needs. And if they are not able to meet our expectations we can stop waiting and hoping for that to happen.

Most importantly relationships require communication — from both parties involved — in order for expectations to be met. Sometimes the other person tells us what they want and we are so busy trying to get our needs met that we don’t hear them. They may have told us in the very beginning what they wanted out of our relationship and we still try to force our desires. Listening to the other person is just as important as saying what we want.

To avoid frustrated expectations communication is essential.

Expecting Perfection

“People throw away what they could have by insisting on perfection, which they cannot have, and looking for it where they will never find it.”
—Edith Schaeffer

Amazingly enough as much as we know there is nothing perfect in this world, we often go about our lives as if things should be perfect. We tend to find the imperfect things in jobs, relationships, families, ourselves and in other situations, and overlook the wonderful things that are available in these areas.

By thinking of the imperfections we often “throw out the baby with the bathwater.” We have a problem at work and think we must have a new job. Or we encounter some obstacles in a relationship and our first response is to get out of it. Perhaps we make a mistake and think that it would be better just to give up on ever trying.

But life is full of imperfection. And loving life and those we share this journey with is what’s important. Always seeking perfection will result in being miserable. Seeking love, laughter, joy, and opportunities to share those gifts we do possess are what makes life happy.

We don’t have to expect ourselves to be perfect any more than we expect that from others. If we can learn to laugh at our imperfections we will also stop expecting others to fit into some pre-determined mold that we have designed in our heads for how they should be. When we do this and allow freedom within us and also for those in our lives, we find reality which itself contains all the joy and love we need.

Always looking for what’s wrong will help us find just that, but learning to appreciate the differences in people, places, and things from what we perceive to be perfection, will help us to embrace life instead of finding fault with it. When we want sunshine and it rains, we adjust our plans; when someone can’t love us as we expect, we love them anyway and seek what we need elsewhere; when we encounter difficulties we use them as tools to grow.

Remember that just as we can’t expect ourselves to be perfect, we cannot expect others to be that way either. Live and let live ought to be our motto when dealing with those we encounter on the path of our journey.

Expecting perfection only brings disappointment.

Controlling Outcomes

“I do believe that when we face challenges in life that are far beyond our own power, it’s an opportunity to build on our faith, inner strength, and courage. I’ve learned that how we face challenges plays a big role in the outcome of them.”
—Sasha Azevedo

Rarely in the journey of life do we absolutely peg the outcome of particular paths and challenges that we face. We may desire things to turn out in one way and have the opposite happen, or things might turn out much better than we could have ever imagined they would.

Often when we are in the midst of something big in our lives we start projecting; thinking thoughts about the future. “What ifs” can drive us crazy if we allow ourselves to get out into tomorrow. We can start obsessing about the craziest things that might happen.

What does happen when we so desperately want to know the outcome is that we miss the journey. And as is often said, “It’s the journey, not the destination.” There’s a whole lot of life going on right this moment that we are absolutely going to miss out on if we are fretting about tomorrow, next week, next year, or our whole lifetime.

Turning the outcome of a thing over to our Higher Power helps us to let go of it and enjoy the moment. We really can’t control outcomes much. We can put our energy into something and give it our all, but we don’t have the final say in what will happen.

It’s very easy to get caught up in the “what ifs” and lose sight of the now. Usually the “what ifs” are not very pleasant because they are fear-based feelings. Turning the outcome over to God gives us more ability to let the “what ifs” go and turns our thinking into positive thoughts instead. And who knows, positive thinking might be better for the outcome than the negativity that comes with fearful “what ifs.”

Live the moment and leave the outcome to God.

Not So Random

“Thanks for crossing my path.”
—Sarah

Sometimes seemingly random things happen in our lives, but they really aren’t so random. Things come into our lives when we need them. People, healing, thoughts, money, whatever it is will come to us.

It may not always seem that way though. Often it doesn’t seem that way. But there are times when it happens and it’s so unlikely that we know that a power greater than us made it occur. We can’t explain it to anyone else usually, and it’s in those times that we cannot put the event or action into words that we know it was not a random event.

The important thing is that we are aware enough to know when we get the message. Because that thing we are in need of may come to us in ways we didn’t expect. We may feel lonely and want to have a date, but instead a friend comes into our lives and fills that loneliness. We may need a self-esteem boost and not even realize it until someone comes along and gives us a compliment. Maybe we feel as if our life doesn’t matter much until someone makes a comment that we are important to them, or that we’ve touched their lives. Or a person crosses our path, ever so briefly, whose simple presence gives us a spark or connection that we need at that moment.

“Thanks for crossing my path,” was written to me by someone whose writing I had read on the Internet. I complimented it and showed her some things I’d written and it touched her enough that she thanked me for crossing her path because she had been having a difficult time and it helped her. We have never met, yet we were both touched by the encounter.

Our lives are intertwined whether or not we realize it. I believe that when we recognize these types of events as coming from a Higher Power our faith grows. Then when darkness comes into our lives we have slivers of light (hope) that shine through the darkness and remind us of events in the past that were not so random.

We never know from where our help will arrive.

Waiting Does Not Always Mean No

“What is delayed is not denied.”
—Kay Yow

Things in life work out the way they are supposed to if we remain open. Even though at times it seems we can’t have what we want at the moment, the day will come when we will see why it didn’t happen now and we’ll see that what we got was better if different than our desire.

We experience what we experience so that we can evolve. Only when we remain open to the lessons of life do we get those lessons. Our Higher Power moves us along even when we don’t see reality because we are blinded by what we desire.

Many times we can look back on our lives and see why we didn’t get the job, the girlfriend, the boyfriend, the new car, the dream house we picked out, and on and on. It’s often said that when one door closes another one opens. But we can only walk through the open door when we are able to fully close the one behind us and when we are willing to accept that things are not always as they seem and that we don’t always get what we want when we want it.

And it may work out that we get exactly what we want it just happens at a different time than we expected, most likely because there was a lesson during the wait. Something like patience or faith could have been the lesson.

Always remember that not getting an answer to a prayer today or getting what we want at the moment, is not a final answer. It’s either a: no, there’s something better; or not now, but we will get an answer sooner or later.

We get what we need when we need it.

Life is What We Make It

“Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.”
—Veronica A. Shoffstall

I imagine many of us have already found out that we are our own best friends or worst enemies. The knight in shining armor that we thought would ride up on a white horse and carry us away never showed. The Cinderella slipper did not fit our foot. And most of us never won a lottery.

But just because the fairy tales didn’t come true, that does not mean that life cannot be good. It’s just reality. Even if we became a movie star, a Grammy winning singer, or the quarterback for the Super Bowl winning team, there would be lots of work involved in getting there. We probably would have received a lot of rejection of our talent by the time we became a huge success. We probably would have worked long, arduous hours too.

Life is what we make it, good or bad. We are each given lots of challenges along the way. We get joy in there too if we are able to be alert for it and not live in the doldrums of despair thinking that life is all bad.

I know people who are suffering with cancer, yet they don’t complain. I know someone who is HIV positive and rather than giving up on life, he is energetic and giving back to the community. The attitudes of these people encourage me to endure and discourage me from complaining about having a bad day or bemoaning something trivial that did or did not happen in my life.

Life is not always fun, but it’s always worth living.

Sticking to Commitments Makes Us Honorable

“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”
—Unknown

It takes a strong person to stick to something they committed to doing when adversity strikes. Or maybe whatever it is just isn’t fun anymore. Sometimes people just are not able to commit to anything for very long.

Whether it’s a job, relationship, social organization, club, team, or even a personal commitment such as dieting, exercise, taking better care of our self; all of these things take a commitment to succeed. And if we give up when it’s not new or fun anymore, or when we see that we may just have set our goals a wee bit too high and we become disappointed, then we lose out on everything because we didn’t see it through.

We don’t have to be perfect. And setting goals high and not quite reaching them does not signal failure at all. Failure comes in quitting and giving up on the whole thing because it can’t be exactly the way we planned it. That’s black and white thinking. It’s thinking that keeps us from ever truly achieving our goals. And it gives others reason not to count on us in the future.

If you commit to something don’t give up until you’re finished.

Expectations Create Turmoil

“The best things in life are unexpected — because there were no expectations.”
—Eli Khamarov

Disappointment always follows unfulfilled expectations. Sometimes our expectations aren’t even realistic so we set ourselves up. And it’s difficult not to expect and want certain things to happen.

What we have to do is try to not expect anything to happen in a particular way, especially things we have absolutely no control over. We can drive ourselves crazy trying to will something to happen the way we want it. So much so that we don’t enjoy the moment because we are worried about the next minute, hour or day.

Life tends to happen in its own way and its own time. This doesn’t mean we don’t take responsibility for the things we do have control over, it means we let go of that which we cannot control.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. –Serenity Prayer