Be proactive, not reactive

Just read a post somewhere a person said it’s better to be proactive than it’s to be reactive. All my life I was raised as a people pleaser that wanted to be friends and make people all around me happy. I always had this goofy smile on no matter what. I even had a friend in middle school that told me I should learn to say no.

After a lifetime of getting screwed over by almost everybody, including my own family, I realized that most people shouldn’t really matter to me. I was treated horribly even when I tried to be nice to outsiders or had filial piety towards my parents. Being kind, easygoing, and agreeable with everyone wasn’t it. People would just walk right over me. Why should other people matter more than me? I shouldn’t conform to them.

Instead of living in their world, I should be living in my own world. It hits me like a brick that I need to be out there doing my own things proactively, rather than wait for people and then react to them. I shouldn’t live under the rules of people. I should make my own rules of how I want to live my life. I’m done walking on eggshells for my parents. I’m done with living for people.