![]() In fact, it expanded to other areas of my life, to the way I interact with my friends, the way I love people, the way I present myself in social media, and possibly in other areas that I haven’t realized yet. But despite the disappearance of the fear of low grades in my mind, the tendency to be a people-pleaser never really went away. I eventually accepted that I wasn’t ever going to get a high grade in math again. And sometimes I do miss that glory, but it just doesn’t feel right anymore. The adult me finds it awkward to be in those situations, especially when it involves expectations of living up to my overachieving potentials in my younger years. When I started underperforming, I didn’t feel like I deserved that attention anymore. I might’ve started thinking somewhere down the road that only those who do commendable things are the ones deserving of attention and praise. That’s where the attention issues come in. Your moral compass, if you even had one, revolves around being seen as a good person and not actually being a good person.īut the reason that hurt so much was because I was so afraid of the perceptions of people who thought highly of me. You try so hard to get people to like you altering, accommodating, and adjusting your personality to be likeable. And you get so afraid of disappointing people so you stay in your own safe little bubble where nothing bad is going to happen. You don’t feel any sense of satisfaction when you do something good when no one is watching, because there’s no one to praise you for it. It might even turn you performative, and do well more for the praise you’re going to get out of it. This basically meant that the only way you know you’re doing a good job is if you get praised for it. In my case, it turned me into a people-pleaser. It’s just that, since we all have different stories, personalities, and ways of reacting to things, I don’t think praise registers the same way to everyone. In fact, I think we need to praise people more often so they feel good about what they do, and also because we should normalize being comfortable with giving compliments instead of normalizing insults. Of course, it’s not inherently a bad thing to praise people for their accomplishments. These days, it’s either “Luh, pataka (Nah, you’re crazy)!” or “Baw, indi man ah (Meh, not really).” Or something along those lines. I gave a meek “thank you” every time I heard praises like that, which is something you’ll probably never hear me say if you give me a compliment like that now. Compliments like “Baw, kaalam nga bata (My, what a smart child)!” and “Pwede ni mag-doktor o abogado (He could be a doctor or a lawyer)!” became ordinary. I peaked in elementary school.)Īs the test papers with perfect scores piled up, so did the amount of praise I got. Math was a bit hard but not as big of a problem as it is now. Nevertheless, the grades were nothing to complain about. There was a time when I was the “smartest” kid in elementary school, but I don’t know if that was true or if I was just a probinsyano kid privileged enough to be exposed to the dictionaries and encyclopedias that my seaman father brought home as pasalubong.
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