Mild apologies in advance if this piece might be a little less light or witty! However I had to write about this because this observation about this particular trait of mine was made by my best friend recently and I had a little issue coming to terms with it, as we often do when we are faced with a cold, brutal truth about ourselves. So in way, I suppose I thought writing about it would make it more real to me.
I was told very recently, that I have a pathological need inside of me to please people. Or in a single, simple term, that I am a doormat. When my best friend first told me this I was highly offended and angry at such an allegation because I didn’t want to be like this and out of all the personality characteristics I possess, this is one that I absolutely did not wish to acquire. However, this statement forced me to take a good, long look in the mirror, snuggle in my blanket, and introspect my life in terms of friendships and relationships that I had had and gotten hurt by. Much to my own disdain, it slowly dawned upon me that perhaps my friend was right and I was spending way too much time trying to please people around me instead of trying to please myself. The mere thought of saying ‘no’ to someone would squirm my insides and make me uncomfortable. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that for the better part of my college life, I had agreed to a countless number of things only because of the doormat nature inside of me, so that people would like me. And although, as I grew older I realised that it was okay if people did not like me, I apparently never shed the doormat inside of me and would have probably not even realised it until it was brought in front of me and I was forced to see it. It happened when I tried to do little things for the friends that were long lost from my life but still sought their validation in one way or another and then getting terribly hurt when they didn’t acknowledge it or appreciate it. Combine this with the passive aggressive nature of mine and you would get an extremely annoying combination. I always knew that I was passive aggressive because I have always had trouble confronting people, whether they are strangers or my loved ones but now I realised I couldn’t even bring myself to refuse them of anything. And after that particular thought hit me, for the longest time I thought and fantasized about how I would love to perform a mental excision surgery on myself and remove this trait entirely. It took me a while to realise that no matter how much I disliked it, it was still a part of why I was how I was and all I could do was come to peace with it and in the future, take baby steps and just try to say ‘no’, every now and then.
I always thought adulting meant learning to live away from home, managing your groceries, expenses or the likes.. however adulting also means, accepting your own self and learning to either love it or correct it slowly and molding yourself in to the person you dream to be. So for now, here I am shaking off the years of dust off my doormat. Meet me in 10 years, maybe the dust would have settled down completely. 🙂
Just another girl who writes 
I can relate. I think I am still like that. Not being able to say no to people, i like to please people and sometimes end up exhausted with so much on my plate. Almost always I never receive the due appreciation but still end up doing it. I tried to say no and then ended up feeling guilty for it. Eventually I realised that this is how I am, I will always give out the good into the universe and hope that it will come back to someday. But I also learnt that I have to put my foot down sometimes and shove that guilt down because I need to be kind to myself as well. Still learning to balance the two.
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