Day 8: Something I struggle with (and a story about change)
Oh wow, been a long time since I’m (acting) busy and now let me continue this writing challenge…
If the question is really, “what is something you struggle with?” I would take it as slightly incorrect question because I it’s not something, but many things. This 2020 makes me having much more time to be alone, to have longer time to contemplate with only myself, and the more I spend time with myself, the more I realized there are many things I struggle with. I struggle with my overthinking habit, I struggle to have better way in communicating with others, I struggle to get better in anything I do. To be exact, it’s hard. But thanks God I’m not struggling to pursue the best things anymore; I just wanna be better, so this struggle won’t hurt me that bad.
But still, I’m gonna thank 2020 for giving me more perspectives and opportunities to change. So last year, I took a quiz about “what is your biggest weakness?” and turned out my result was: people pleaser. At that point I just realized that this is one of my all-time biggest struggle. Most of the time, it’s very hard for me to say no. When I dislike or disturbed by something, I just keep it by myself without telling others or whoever causes that. Sometimes I avoid conflicts— no, not sometimes, I avoid conflicts a lot. I didn’t dare to confront people who hurt me, or make me uncomfortable. Later I knew that I don’t like to be seen as weak person, yet I always act tough in front of people, but I didn’t realize that being people pleaser indeed the weakest side of me.
Then 2020 came. I don’t know exactly where I got this power from, but I might say that I changed much. This year was very hard, because I’m struggling alone most of the time, so I realized that remain a people pleaser would only make it harder for myself. From that, I started to learn to say no. I learned to speak up more, to say anything truthfully — what I think, what I feel, without getting afraid to be disliked. I start fighting on my own rights. Maybe in other words, I’m getting more rebellious. For example, in workplace, when my boss gave me a task with irrational deadline, I didn’t dare to push back. When they gave me unclear direction, I didn’t work on it directly but asked first instead, without afraid of being judged as disobedient (previously I directly worked on it and sometimes got redundant works and it disturbed me a lot). Whenever I feel uncomfortable, I try to speak my thoughts out.
I didn’t know how “succeed” I am to get rid of this people pleaser trait, until one of my coworkers said that I have a sharp tongue. At first I got overthink about it: is it true? Are my words getting too harsh? Do I really become disobedient person? Am I doing something wrong? But maybe because I know I’m getting more logical (thanks to my recent MBTI test result for letting me know that I have almost 50:50 portion of Feeling:Thinking), I didn’t take it too personally. I know what I’m doing, I’m getting more objective, I know what’s correct and what’s wrong, and I dare to confront if there’s something wrong. Yes, I also learn on how to be a nicer person after all… but being nice doesn’t mean you should be a people pleaser, no? 🙂
A side story.
I read a book titled The Courage To Be Disliked, written by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, since this mid-year. Despite I’m still struggling to finish it (lol what a shame because the book isn’t even thick at all), I think some parts also contributed to my changes and growth. This book written in a form of dialogue between a youth and a philoshoper, which mostly talking about Alderian psychology. I’ll put my favorite part of this book here, when the youth asked to philosopher why he can’t change even though he wants it so bad:
People always choose not to change. People are constantly selecting their lifestyles. You say you want to change right this minute, you even claim you want to be reborn as a different person. After all that then, why are you still unable to change? It is because you’re making the persistent decision not to change your lifestyle. Although there are some small inconveniences and limitations, you probably think that the lifestyle you have now is the most practical one, and that it’s just easier to leave things as they are.
Simply put, one wants to change, but changing is scary.
Alderian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.
Yes, reading that part made me wonder how I really wanted to change to be less people pleaser but I was unable to do it back then. And I knew that I just lack of courage, so I pushed myself further — in conclusion, same with the book’s title, I took courage to be disliked.
Let’s have more courage to achieve real happiness, shall we?
