We constantly get the message that everybody is different, and that we're all unique. Yet we're all guilty of attributing thoughts and feelings to others based solely on how we'd react ourselves. This fallacy derives from the common assumption that our individual biology and biography are somehow universal. . . .

Should we trust our brain--or our gut? That's the question. The answer, though, is more complicated than most people realize. Somehow, over the past few decades it's become conventional wisdom that we should put our faith in our feelings. That is, if we feel something--especially if we feel it intensely--then it deserves to be seen as valid, or truthful. . . .

Part 3. How to Get Beyond the People-Pleasing Syndrome
It's certainly understandable that when people-pleasers grow up, they do so with a fully crystallized program that to be good enough they must comply with the wishes and demands of others. . . .

As children, people-pleasers generally felt loved only when they were conforming to the needs and desires of their parents. Submitting themselves to parental preferences was rewarded; deviating from these preferences--maybe even dictates--was regularly met with some form of displeasure.

People-pleasers are proficient at pleasing everyone . . . but themselves. They are master accommodators, intuiting what is wanted of them and--in both word and deed--bestowing on others the attentiveness and care they’ll typically deny themselves.

Perhaps more than anything else, our mental and emotional well-being depends on our willingness to confront obstacles in life. The all-too-common alternative, of course, is simply to retreat from them. If, however, we're genuinely to progress and feel good about ourselves, we need to resist the ever-present temptation to withdraw from whatever we'd prefer not having to deal with.

Daily I look around me and observe how people shy away from genuine, self-revealing communication--almost as though to embark on such a path would be like walking into a minefield, where a single misstep might be fatal. But the communication we all long for--a powerful, expressive dialogue that might spiritually connect us to each another--is in fact fraught with danger and uncertainty. So almost all of us experience the need to carefully monitor just how much of ourselves we divulge to others.

Addressing this topic generally, the immortal Dagwood Bumstead once claimed: "You can't teach people to be lazy--either they have it, or they don't." So what is laziness anyway? Is it about being slow to do something (what we typically call procrastination)? . . . Or about doing something slowly? . . . Or about not doing it at all? . . . Or, finally, is it about not sufficiently wanting to do something? And if this last alternative is true, when we label someone lazy are we really talking about that person's being indolent, sluggish, or slothful? Or is there something else going on that hasn't yet been appreciated?

At one pole of communication stands passivity: not speaking out for fear of adverse consequences. At the other end stands aggressiveness: voicing negative sentiments without restraint or regard for their effect on others. In between passivity and aggression lies the golden mean: asserting one's thoughts and feelings, wants and needs, while at the same time showing appreciation and respect for the other's viewpoint.