Reflecting on you

So yet again I am taken aback by Paulo Coelho's quotes,

" If you live to please other people, everybody may like you, but you are going to hate yourself".

It may not be obvious until of course you've reached the age of thirty and you don't recognize yourself. You begin to wonder what you have been doing all your life and then suddenly you have to start all over. Last night I enjoyed thoroughly, the movie "Julie&Julia"

Many of us find ourselves at a crossroad in life where we aren't too happy with ourselves, what we've accomplished, what we're doing in our life. What we observe however is that because we've spent most of our time pleasing other people we thought we were doing the right thing. We only realize that we were very wrong when all the people who used to be around to comment on our lives have moved on to live their own.

These are all things that we know and experience during our lives, especially the professional life. Once we lose the attention of others we feel less worthy, as if for some reason our self-worth is based on what others think of us rather than that what we think of ourselves.

Paulo's comment is very straightforward - he's not saying that you have to think only of yourself, but what I understand from it is that there is one opinion that should matter - your own - and of course I would add, and God's opinion. Now as straightforward as that may be we know that when we live in a world and we want to get the promotion, or secure a business deal or pass an exam, we are living in the world where value is placed more on WHO you are and whether the person with the "power" likes you or not. Gone are the days of merit. You rarely see people getting promoted because they "earned" it and I don't mean in years worked at the organization. You don't close a business deal because it makes sense, you close a deal because you took the guy out to dinner and over dinner he started taking an interest in you. Having been immersed in this type of thinking we focus on pleasing others in order to "get ahead" - whatever that means.

Rather we should just say, "It's me and God". The only people that matter. Once you put God at your center, you start to focus on you and developing yourself into a better person for you, which will in turn be a better person for others. You can never let other people guide you - your guide should forever be God or else your world will not make sense and you will forever be frustrated. And for those who seek to please others, they will eventually begin to hate themselves.