I found myself doing something embarrassingly strange a few days ago.

I was browsing through a fitness website that had a video on the landing page of people participating in a 10K. In the video, one of the runners, a lady, looked up at the camera, smiled, and waved.

Here’s the weird bit: I smiled and waved back at her. Like full-on, animated grinning and flailing of my arms.

Yup, I actually interacted with a recording of someone I’d never met.

Sounds peculiar? Well, I’ve heard Prince Charles has in-depth conversations with his plants—and he’s slated to be the king of a whole country. Smiling and waving at a video recording can’t be that ridiculous.

Ok, fine, it is.

So, why did I do it?

Well, it was partly instinctive—someone smiles and waves, and you kind of automatically wave back.

But, also, er… I didn’t want Running Lady to feel ignored or dissed.

That’s just one teeny example of how I’m wired to be a people pleaser.

If you’ve been around my blog a while, you know that about me.

But, perhaps I’ve been hard on myself about my “approval addiction.” Maybe some element of pleasing others can actually be a good thing. I’m not a psychologist, so I could be way off the mark here, but making others happy can stem from empathy—when you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, that often leads to wanting to make sure they’re included, or comfortable, or feel like they belong.

Bringing others joy and in the process winning their favor is a good thing.

Till it’s not.

When people’s feelings—or what we perceive to be people’s feelings—start to dictate how we think, speak and act, it becomes a pit that’s hard to climb out of. It’s an exhausting way to live.

We all know that when you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one.

I read a profound and deeply moving quote which impacted the very core of my being. It said: “You can’t please everyone. You’re not pizza.”

(And all the people said, “Amen!”)

Chew on that for a bit. And try not to let a craving for yeasty, mozzarella-smothered goodness overtake you while you ponder this truth: You and I are not pizza.

You know the funny thing, though? There are actually some people in this wonderful world who don’t like pizza. *Insert sharp intake of breath here. I’m fairly sure I can’t be friends with them—but they exist. And if even pizza can’t make them happy, do I even stand a chance??

The world tells us that we are not created to please everyone. I agree.

It then suggests a solution: we should live for ourselves and do what makes us happy. I disagree.

As people who have been bought at such a high cost of our Saviour dying for us, we are not called to live to please ourselves. We are called to please God.

The “cure” for people-pleasing is to please God

Living to please people strips us of peace.

Living to please ourselves puffs us up with pride.

But living to please God gives us purpose.

 

Galatians 1: 10 is the go-to verse for people pleasers. Paul says in this letter: “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

(Boo-yah! Paul said it first.)

If you and I believe our calling is to serve Christ, then both living to please people and living for our own pleasure stand at odds with our very purpose.

The answer to approval addiction is not to put ourselves first. The answer is to put God first. When we do, we’ll end up blessing people rather than pleasing them—and that is, by far, the higher calling.

Meanwhile, let’s hope I stop enthusiastically waving to inanimate computer screens. Maybe I’ll take a page out of Prince Charles’ book and have a meaningful conversation with my bougainvillea instead.

Kidding aside, may we long to truly love people rather than merely please them because that is a reflection of loving God and living to please Him always.

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