Making Everyone Happy

Over the past several years, I have discovered a tendency that can rob me of any joy whatsoever in interacting with others. It’s called “people-pleasing”. I honestly never thought I would find myself in the position to write this post from personal experience. As self-centered as I have been at times in my life, one might would think making everyone happy is the least of my worries. Being in the helping profession opened up many things in life. Along with exercising a desire to help others, apparently a door was also opened for this people-pleasing temptation. This post is specifically for people that share in this struggle to make others happy.

Pleasing others is an impossible goal.

The first twisted thing about people-pleasing is that is impossible. The best we can hope for is that others decide to be pleased with our efforts. At any time, they can decide not to be pleased. Even if we are doing what has seemed to work in the past, they may react differently. It’s always up in the air how others will respond to our efforts. Bosses, husbands, wives, friends, parents, children…they all can be the target of our desire to make someone happy. And when people-pleasing is our focus, they all have the power to crush us at any time.

Pleasing others is a self-destructive goal.

We will blame ourselves. It’s inevitable. When we have taken it upon ourselves to make others happy, we have essentially put all the responsibility for another’s happiness on our shoulders. So, when it doesn’t work out, we beat ourselves up. We may get angry. We may store up that anger, not wanting others to see it. We may eventually blow up in a fit of fury, surprising everyone around us that is used to us trying to make them happy all the time.

Pleasing others is a control issue.

That’s right. Unbelievable, I know. We people pleasers are actually struggling with control issues. In attempting to please others, we have fallen into attempts to “make others happy”. Notice the word “make”. It implies we think we have control over another person’s emotional state. Again, others can choose to be happy or sad in response to our efforts to please. We cannot “make” anyone happy. Period. That is the hard truth we must swallow. We can do things that we know another person “can” enjoy and be happy about. We can be responsible TO others in what we do, but not responsible FOR their responses.

Pleasing others is idol worship.

This is the toughest part to see sometimes. I admit, I chose a strict title to this section of the post in order to grab our attention as people-pleasers. I did not do this to encourage us to wallow in guilt, so please avoid going down that path, if at all possible. I promise, it will not help. Guilt is a common weapon used against people-pleasers. It’s a weakness for most of us. It drags us down and encourages more people-pleasing efforts. But, at the risk of some guilt slipping in, we do need to acknowledge a fact here. When we make our goal to make others happy, we have chosen a master. We have chosen the one(s) we will look to for our needs to be met. And the ones we choose are people, NOT the One who can actually meet our needs. In other words, when we attempt to make others happy, we are trusting in them to make us happy. We are not happy unless they are! And, remember, they can choose not to be happy anytime they want, making us unhappy right along with them!

The cure for pleasing others is simple, but hard to do.

Surrendering the effort to control others through people-pleasing is like jumping out of a plane for us. We must know, without a doubt, that our parachute will open up at the right time, landing us safely on the ground below. Trusting in the parachute to do what it is built to do is like trusting God to be who He says He is. He makes huge claims about taking care of us. He promises to meet all of our needs. He states that He is pleased with us in Christ. He says that He loves us no matter what others think or say. His acceptance of us is not based on whether or not we do enough for Him. It may not be easy for us, but God-pleasing is much simpler than people-pleasing. It is based on one thing: faith. He is pleased with us when we trust Him (Hebrews 11:6). That’s it. Nothing more. That’s His desire. That is the foundation of everything else, including doing things that can be pleasing for others…when they choose to receive it. When we rest in the fact that He is pleased with us, the desperate need to please others fades away.