The Need to Please

When I was hidden, everybody was paying for it. Even if they didn’t know it. Everybody was being robbed of the best of who I was. Even when I was on my game, I couldn’t give you the real stuff God put inside me to give away. People wanted to love me, but they couldn’t. People wanted me to love them, but I couldn’t. Everybody lost. . . . The goal is not just for someone’s exposure, but their freedom—so everyone gets the best of you.
     John Lynch, Bruce McNicol and Bill Thrall, in the novel Bo’s Cafe

A parable for today:

I sat there horrified as he did it.  At lunch for a business meeting, my boss berated the young server for an offense only he seemed to see.  As she stood there wilting under his ire, I sat there wanting to melt too.  Mute.  Not knowing what to do.  In my opinion she didn’t do anything wrong.  But she did in my boss’s eyes and he felt the need to let her know.  Harshly.  Publically. 

‘And the gratuity will reflect it too!’

His parting shot before he dismissed her and she slunk away.

I’d seen him do it before.  To co-workers, a lot.  Even to me, once.  I knew how it felt.  I felt bad for her.  But I stared down at the table, wishing I was anywhere but there.  And I sat there mute.

The second we got in the car on the way back to the office he spoke up: 

‘I won’t apologize for what I just did.’ 

He knew that it had bothered me.  It would have bothered anyone who witnessed it.  But he didn’t care. 

‘I expect better service than what she gave and she needed to know that.  You should expect it to.  I don’t apologize for what I said.’

I struggled to respond, tempering what I really wanted to say.  Out came some innocuous answer that said virtually nothing.  I knew that to challenge him only created more tension, more ire on his part.  So I avoided it.

And I felt lousy about it.  

He was rude.  He was mean.  He was unreasonable.  He was wrong. 

But being my boss, I voiced none of those beliefs.  And I suffered in my silence, along with a young server who was certainly suffering too. 

I’m haunted by moments such as those – moments when I don’t speak up to defend someone, moments when some people step over reasonable lines, moments when I don’t want to displease someone who has some power over me. 

Why is it so hard, at times, to stand up for what I think it right or for what I think is terribly wrong? 

Why is the pull to be liked, to please others so strong at times that I would rather deny part of myself and my principles and live in silence?  

What causes that fear?  What keeps me shut in?   What stops me from allowing the courage of my convictions to come out? 

I’m a work in progress, continuously growing.  Continuously trying to let the best of me be seen. Continuously looking for ways to begin the conversations that allow the best of all of us to be seen.

Photo by Mathilde LMD on Unsplash