Good morning, Olivia (@olivia55)

Once again you've said some things that have my innards vibrating––in an exciting way! Much of what you've told us this morning reminds me of me. You've told us you were a people pleaser. But you use "were." "Were" has me figuring you're over your people pleasing. If that's true, then Congratulations!!! It's not easy, getting over people pleasing.

I, too, was a people pleaser, 24/7. But I still am. To a lesser degree, I hope. I'm 80. (A life-loving, high-spirited 80, I'd like to think. 🙂 )

The phrase "people pleasing," as I've used about myself it all my life, for me it has been another way of saying I'm "chicken," unable to assert myself, to stand on my own, speak my mind, etc., etc., etc. Struggling in secret with this knowledge about myself all through my high school and college years, once I had my bachelor's, I reasoned, "A couple of years in the Army will 'fix' me." So I joined up.

When I got out and was a civilian again (still "unfixed," by the way), to any who'd challenge me, asking me why I'd joined the Army in the first place (in their minds, the military and me didn't to go together), I told a lie, a lie like maybe I was afraid the Army would draft me, or my father expected me to join the Army, or (the dumbest lie of all) joining the Army is what a man does (a "real" man, anyway). At the time I didn't think of my lie as a "bad" lie, a "flat-out lie;" I thought of it more like a "necessary lie." After all, I couldn't tell them the truth. If I had told them I had hoped the Army would "fix" me, I'd have only confused them.

Besides, for most of my life I've had a tough time telling myself the truth.

No longer, however. These days I'm writing all this down, unpacking as much of this as I can. At the top of what I've written I've placed a favorite Sondheim lyric: "No eagle flies against the sky/As eagerly as I/Have flown against my life."

I wish you a wonderful weekend, Olivia.

Cheers!
Ray