This is a response to Why People-Pleasing is Inherently Selfish.
People-pleasing is a topic that is completely different to everyone, some find it selfless while others find it selfish. I personally see it going in both directions. If you are a chronic people-pleaser then you will know that you put everyone else's needs above your own. You constantly think about other people, what they are feeling, how a situation will make them feel and what you can do to make them feel better. All while potentially having the same feelings or worse that the other person is feeling. There are some people who find this selfish, but selfish in the way that you are ignoring your own emotions to help others. It's selfish that the younger child within you is screaming, and you are pushing that child down to help someone else.
While I do not agree or disagree with the statement that people-pleasing is selfish, I do think that it garners a conversation that needs to be had; the conversation around self-love. If you're struggling with self-love, confidence, self-esteem, or mental health issue. Then you might have a feeling of where this conversation is heading towards. If you generally lack the ability to harbor good feeling and or emotions about yourself then you will find yourself people-pleasing. Due to the fact that you would rather help other people than address the problems that are happening in your head and life. There is not enough love that you have for yourself to sort out your own problems, but helping other people makes those problems feel smaller and insignificant. Until they become bigger and bigger and bigger and then too big to ignore. This could be conveyed as selfish, because you are selfishly ignoring your own emotions, feelings, issues so then you do not have to deal with them head on. That is why some people persevere people-pleasing as selfish.
Now to play devil's advocate, let's look at the other side of the argument. Where people-pleasing is a selfless act. Some of the prime examples that pop into my head is obviously that you are putting someone else before yourself and tending to their needs. Another one is that your problems may seem significant to you, but on the grand scheme they aren't so in turn helping someone whose problems are severe is a selfless act. A prime example is that my aunt was behind on Christmas Eve for wrapping presents for her families Christmas, so I volunteered to wrap her presents knowing that it would ease her tensions for the holidays. I was thinking about what she wanted in that moment, and not what I wanted to do. Which was drink wine and sit around doing nothing so in turn that could be considered a selfless act of people-pleasing.
Now that we have seen both sides of the argument, let's get back to my personal opinion on the matter. Which is that it's both a selfless and a selfish act. As someone who is a recovering people-pleaser, it helps and also destroys you. When you are thinking of others like cleaning my mom's house for her and thinking of how much it will mean to my mother to have a clean house. I am also pushing down my feelings of doing what I want to do. Another example is when my parents ask me to do multiple tasks within the day, I clearly cannot tell them no due to the fact of people-pleasing and wanting to make them happy. I am also ignoring all of the things that I wanted to do for the day or accomplish because I am doing what I am told which leads to some bad thoughts mentally.
In conclusion, people-pleasing can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. It's incredible to do things for others, but when it takes over your life then it becomes a problem. When you never try to make other's happy and only think of yourself, that also becomes a problem. It's all about balance; take care of the people you love, but also take care of yourself, because at the end of the day the person who matters the most is YOU.
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