I’ve recently learned that a “be good” mechanism I adopted at an early age was to do so in order to receive affirmation from my mother. Her life was always chaotic, and so I tried hard to “be good” in all that I did so that her life was a little better and I would receive my affirmation in that way.

Not good … for me.

The grown-up result was (and still is, in many respects) an equating of “his/her happiness” with my self-affirmation of worth. Along the way, learning to pursue (and even know) what make me “happy” got lost.

I became very good at reading people’s emotions and doing what I could to “be nice” to them. The result was (and is) shallow relationships that have nothing to do with who I am as a person in terms of pursuing “happiness” in any real form.

I have been working on that this year. It’s not been easy, and I’m on the threshold of making a very difficult decision to part ways with my primary relationship. It goes against my “be good and nice” self-training, but I think the freedom will allow both of us to purse a life that really does make us both happier.