Always Wanting to be Liked

I’ve been thinking a bit about how strongly I feel the need to be liked by everyone I meet, and how tedious it is. I guess it’s a mixture of low self-esteem, fear of confrontation and perhaps its own conditioning, but… it sucks. It means I don’t stick up for myself, I don’t do things I want to do, I set poor boundaries for myself. While I try to see the good in everyone, I am still not exactly a huge people-person, so why does it bother me so much what people on my periphery thing of me, when I am wholly apathetic about them in return.

A bit like anxiety, it seems like one of those things that needs chipping away at over time. Saying no to more things, being more assertive with my needs and wants, and making a conscious effort to disentangle my emotions from how I perceive other people think of me are all things that I can work on every day, so I should start now.