If You Change Yourself to Make Others Happy, Here’s What Will Happen
The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself. -Rita Mae Brown
Bronnie Ware was a nurse who worked in palliative care. She would often engage in intimate conversations as she sat by the bedsides of those who were dying.
In doing so, she discovered that the dying had a common theme of regrets. In a viral blog post titled, “Regrets of the Dying,” she revealed what the top five regrets of the dying were. The most common was this,
“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
It’s a paradox that trying to please other people only leads to your misery. Ultimately, the only person who can make you happy is you.
The remainder of this article will explore why. Here we go.
Not Being You Will Destroy You
“Not being you will destroy you. A life lived for “them” is ultimately a life wasted.” -Anthony Moore
A few years ago, I admittedly released that I’d been living a life that wasn’t congruent with myself. I was at university not because I wanted to be there, but because it was what other people expected of me. I was following not my own path, but other people’s.
When it came to turning my life around and finally being true to myself, a lot of people no longer understood me.
They questioned my behaviors and beliefs. They asked: Why would I get up at 3am to write each day? Why would I value learning over entertainment? Why couldn’t I just live for the present moment?
Now looking back, I can’t really blame them. It’s a natural tendency to become like those around you, and society isn’t generally welcoming to anyone who’s willing to stand out.
However, at the time, I couldn’t see this. I tried to reason with everyone. I tried to explain myself and change their perceptions.
Indeed, it did almost come to a point where I just went back to living an “ordinary life” until I finally realized that not being me would lead to…
