I believe I’ve just realized why people-pleasing is so natural to me. I guess it’s not new information, but I’ve integrated it now. Growing up, my quality of life was directly correlated with the mood of the authority figures in my life, whoever they happened to be. I became a sycophant because it worked.
Nowadays, it just doesn’t track anymore. I recently saw a TikTok that said, “How many people are really pleased with you right now?” which really shines a light on how self-interested we tend to be. Depending on what vantage I view “how others feel about me” as a discrete concept, I can twist my logic to reasonably come to any conclusion. I can imagine the girl I’m crushing on is also wondering about my feelings towards her, but she’s just as likely to be doing anything else. My imagination doesn’t really affect reality, but it does color my perception of it. Now, that would be really useful, except for my habit of self-criticism.
Again, this is reasonable, both from a CPTSD perspective and a conditioned behavioral sense. Growing up, I was both told how smart I am and criticized for my social awkwardness. Being kind/nice/polite was stressed over being assertive, confident, or proud. Humility wasn’t optional when that’s an essential component of humility. If someone is humble simply because they must be, they grow up meek and afraid of succeeding or being excellent. I’m so terrified that I’ll become arrogant like my father that I’ve remained that quiet, awkward, scared little boy my whole adult life.
I’m usually under the impression that I don’t deserve to be happy, but that no one else does either. Happiness has to be built, earned, or otherwise worked for. Inherited happiness doesn’t exist or is at least unsustainable in adult life. I’m willing to be challenged on that conclusion, but it rings true to me when considered. The whole concept of deserving never made sense to me. Who is the arbiter of deservedness or righteousness? God? I think not. The Bible (our only reference point to the Judeo-Christian God’s stance on the matter) teaches how God would:
- Test humans for their moral virtue,
- Lash out emotionally when they didn’t get their way,
- Set expectations unreasonably high, then punish those who couldn’t meet them,
- And allow tyrannical rule over those who worshipped him.
That sounds incredibly human-like, not the behavior of a loving benevolent God.
Honestly, when putting it in that light, it sounds a lot like the way my parents were when I was a kid. That begs the question: how much of my conception of God is tainted with cynicism and mistrust of authority from my childhood? Damn if that isn’t insightful. Too bad there isn’t a way to get a satisfying answer.
While all of this is cathartic, and perhaps a little relieving to get out of my head, I’m not certain if I can do anything with it. Maybe it’ll be easier to detach my self-worth from others’ opinions of me, my ability to produce, and other external sources of validation. Given such freedom of opinion, I might learn that I don’t like who I am and want to change at least some aspects of it. There are some habits I’d like to break, and new habits I’m trying to reinforce, but overall, I’m pretty satisfied with where I’m at and who I’ve become. I’m still skittish and afraid of intimacy, but the further away I get from my childhood and the self-inflicted abuses of early adulthood, the easier it is to give myself the grace I need to affect real change in my life.
The core takeaways for me here are:
- There’s a reasonable explanation for why I am the way I am.
- I have the ability to change who I am so long as I’m willing to actually look at myself.
- There’s no way to calculate “worth,” so there’s no use in attempting it.
While this isn’t compulsory, something I’d like to consider next time I feel this introspective flow available to me is why I’m so averse to big emotions, both negative and positive. I have my suspicions, but I’d like to plant the seed here and let my subconscious stew on it for a bit. Jumping to conclusions when a conclusion is what we’re looking for is dangerous. It’s easy to mistake a quick and easy answer for the right one. If that doesn’t feel ready, maybe self-trust and confidence, or why I refuse to allow myself to want anything without being disgusted with that desire or averse to getting what I wanted. Lots of room for consideration there.
On a lark, I figured I’d ask ChatGPT-4o for a sentiment analysis on this writing, just to see what conclusion a computer could draw, and I’m beginning to see it as a potential tool for improving my self-image. As mentioned, I can twist some logic into how self-important and aloof I sound, or question why I’m even posting this. “Why would anyone want to read what I have to say when it’s all about me in the first place.” Having an objectively disinterested resource tell me the message I’m sending is the same one in my heart is validating in a big way. I’m not as averse to sharing my private thoughts with an LLM as I am a person, and that may make it easier to share with people going forward.