Who are You Trying to Please?

There's a statement I found on web some time ago, and it went: "I'm the kind of person that will try to make everyone else smile, but when I need to smile, there's no one for me" or something along those lines.

And on web too, I found another statement like this: "If I were grooming and making myself look cute, it is solely to make myself happy. I did that for me, not for anyone to judge." or something along those lines.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong about those two statements (because nothing is wrong in opinions, duh) but these statements are interesting and I wanted to make something out of them. They seemed to have no relation whatsoever but for me, they do. Somehow. But hey, I'm not going to talk about the substance of those statements; I'll talk about what it have in common and what of it that makes it interesting.

So enough with the prologue thing, let's get on with this.


What I get from these two questions is that, somehow, people (or society, whatever) mattered.

They do--no doubt--and it is our choice whether to be dependent over their existence and judgement or not.  Wait. No. They will always matter, and we will always be dependent over them in a way but it is our choice to care or not to care.

Now people mostly torn in these two category. People who care and people who don't care.

Because we are living with others, most of us obviously wanted to achieve harmony among us, right? That's why they mattered. And when they mattered, somehow we want them to like us, or to think nicely of us, or whatever. Or the least, we will do things that we think won't bother others to the point they will hate us because of it. Sometimes these feelings are there naturally, because, well, because you're just that kind of person. But sometimes they are there because everyone's like that, or those are values you learned through schools and society; and you choose to keep it that way.

Those are people who care. When people care, that kind of thing matters.

When people don't care, that kind of thing is stupid.

"What's the point of living for others?" they said. "You live a life for people to judge?" they said.

When people don't care, they see themselves as individuals with individual needs MORE than they see themselves as part of society. "Yes we live with others, yes they sort of matter in a way or two, but who cares if they don't like the way I do this or that?" they said. And they're not wrong. Certainly not wrong.

I mean, who cares right?

It turns out that a lot of people do.

And this is my point.

Sometimes, being recognized by others, being liked by others, doing things that makes other people happy is exactly what (some) people need. In short, accepted by society, treated nicely by others and whatnots are people-who-care's the so-called individual needs. In the other hand, doing things they want to and the way they want to, looking silly and doing whatever whenever wherever or something like that are people-who-don't-care's individual needs.

So when people who don't care think that it's more important for them to do things they like, that much importance is also applied for people who care, but for different matter. And that is, others' opinion, or something.




So if you ask me which one is better, none of it is better. None of it is stupid, because what's important is different for everyone and who am I to judge others' priority?

Everyone has their own way to be happy, to be content, to feel comfortable and why are we so nosy about how people are selfish or  how people live like robots for their family?



So when it comes to the question, who are you trying to please?

The answer should be you.




Whether you are pleasing yourself by doing things your way...

...or pleasing yourself by pleasing others...

...it doesn't matter.


What matter is that you're happy with that. If you're not happy, then you should think again if you're doing the right one.

Or doing it for the right matter.

Because, surely, one cannot be happy just with caring every single demand that came from everyone and one cannot be happy just with doing things the so-called way that they wanted to every time.

So yeah.

Be happy!