Keeping Everyone Happy

I used to be obsessed with keeping everyone happy. My thinking seemed logical: If everyone was happy, there would be harmony, and everyone's lives would be easier as a result. Including mine.

This obsession continued for decades. I became something of a master at making [almost] everyone happy.

As you might have guessed, I was the [almost].

There were times when I did successfully make everyone happy, there was harmony, and life was easy for everyone. The problem was, those times were very rare. Usually, I felt like I was holding a giant, knotted, sparking ball of livewires, playing the world's most sadistic game of Twister while I tried to keep the ends from touching and blowing up the whole thing.

I can't tell you when enough became enough or when I finally understood the adage "If you try to please everyone, you please no one" was a truism and not a challenge. And I won't lie and say I have it all figured out now and never fall back into that decades-long survival mechanism of people-pleasing.

But what I can tell you is how I pull myself back to sanity when I see it happening.

I ask myself this simple question: "Who do you serve?"

The answer is different in every situation. Instead of leading to confusion, though, stopping to ask who I am serving helps me gain clarity about what is mine to give, what isn't, and which boundaries I risk violating by giving what isn't mine or by giving something I don't really want to give.

In every situation where you are trying to mediate between two or more people, there will be one person you serve above all others involved. This could be your spouse, one of your children, a customer, your manager, yourself, or even your deity or philosophy. Situation and context dictate the correct answer.

But if the answer is different in every situation, how can you know you've chosen correctly?

When you choose correctly, your stomach will unknot. You will know you are taking the correct action. You will be able to speak the truth to everyone involved, without pandering or making anyone the bad guy. 

You won't wake up in the middle of the night worrying about how you're going to keep those livewires from touching.

If someone is truly unhappy with the outcome - and they will be from time to time - you are okay with that. Not out of spite or because you don't care or because what you want matters more than what the other person wants, but because you know you've done your best for the person you serve in that particular situation.

You will feel good about your choice, even if you "lose" as a result of it.

The beauty of this is in the long run, you will have done the best for everyone involved. Strangely, by not trying to keep everyone happy, ultimately everyone will be content. Most of the time.

I would be remiss if I didn't include a caveat here. You must be careful about who you allow yourself to serve. This technique only works if you only allow yourself to serve moral and just people (or deities or philosophies.) If you find yourself serving someone who is immoral, unjust, or just plain unsavory, you will never feel the peace I describe. In fact, the opposite will happen: You will feel uncomfortable regardless of your action.

Keeping everyone happy is impossible. Knowing who you serve and taking the action that serves them best, though? That's so easy it almost feels like cheating.