I’ve tried. Oh, I’ve tried so hard.
Over the years, I was a “people pleaser.” I always tried to say the polite thing. Do the nice thing. And I’m thankful those traits are part of my personality. But, having those traits have taught me some hard lessons along the way. Because, along the way, I got frustrated.
Shouldn’t “so and so” see that I tried hard? Shouldn’t that person know that I was being nice, intentionally? For them? Shouldn’t that be enough?
Why do I have to continually convince someone of my motivation? My heart? My character? Shouldn’t they now know fully, who I am?
The frustration came. In waves.
The tears fell. In droves.
I didn’t understand that it wasn’t really about ME. It was about THEM.
I can be nice. I can do something for someone else out of the goodness of my heart. I can encourage, support, advise. And then I have to let those gestures stand on their own. I need to not carry them with me, and wonder why those moments didn’t last as long as I thought they should.
They had their moment of impact. They hit their target. My words. My actions. But for some people, that’s all they are ever going to do.
I am not going to be everything that some people want me to be. Because if I were, they would literally suck the life from me. And from you, too.
Some people are just needy forever.
They need reassurance, always.
And we just can’t be ALL to them. We can’t fill those expectations. Ever.
We can be stronger. We can grow. We can love and listen. We can hope and help. But then we need to walk on.
We have done our best in a moment that was meant for us to do our best.
For them, they want more. But for us, we gave all we were meant to give.
No more convincing needs to be given on our part. No more bending over backwards to repeat what we’ve already said. No.
We will never be enough for some.
And that has to be enough for us, just to know that.
No comments:
Post a Comment