The people-pleaser meanders around their garden, watering plants while listening to the birds chirping. All is well as they approach to admire the fountain from which all their goodness pours from. In its politeness, it is what supplies the garden with serenity.

But, for the first time, the people-pleaser frowns. They lean in closer to the spring, inches away from the water. It is the first time this question occurs to them: 

Where is this coming from?

The moment a people-pleaser begins pondering the source of their goodness is an important one. Because their politeness has always been a given, there is an unnerving sense they may have been dealing in counterfeit currency for their entire life. Their desire to be kind and unobtrusive has always been convenient to write off as an outcome of their inherent goodness. At some point, however, life makes the matter difficult to avoid.

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I know this well. In my first months posting to social media, I started having the confounding experience of getting affected by the opinions of people despite understanding they had no real bearing on my life. To exist online as a people pleaser was senseless self-destruction as faceless entities on the internet easily threatened the sense of self I had cultivated for so long.

Divorcing my desire to be a good person from my desire to be seen as one became a matter of survival. The two can be difficult to discern, but untangling them is ultimately what allows one to have the conviction to be themselves, make mistakes and walk away from imperfect outcomes. The goal is to craft an original moral compass that you can count on without relying on external consultation or consideration when necessary.

It’s difficult to avoid this in college. There will be situations that end poorly or in misunderstanding. You know you meant well or feel like someone else’s perception does not align with your reality, and the instinct is to keep clarifying and clarifying. However, there will be times when people are incapable or unwilling to hear out your perspective.

To live well, you must be able to process these moments that do not end in the closure you hoped for. It bears the stoic simplicity of taking a punch to your chin — that, out there, someone has their own perception of me that I know does not agree with my internal character and intentions.

Eventually, on this path, you’ll finally realize the irony that the hope to be seen as kind obscures your instincts toward true kindness at every turn. That desire to ensure my own goodness in the eyes of others, to constantly clarify myself, has the potential to needlessly prolong pain for myself and others as well as hinder my authentic expression. 

I have found that the most valuable aspect of this process is how it has liberated my emotional expression. People-pleasing demands that emotions are either strictly managed or alienated altogether. Anger, frustration, disappointment — these are some of the most threatening feelings to the micromanaging people-pleaser.

However, learning to process my mistakes properly has also meant these dangerous emotions are safer to allow back in my life. I am more secure to accept anger knowing that, at the end of the day, I will have my back, even if I make a mistake.

Now, the ex-people-pleaser walks through their garden. They water the plants, regard the birds and come to their fountain. They smile, now knowing where the spring leads. Beneath the earth are their ugly mistakes, times they hurt others and had to be the one to forgive themselves, moments where they made choices when no one was there to give advice or pat them on the back. 

But they also know there are the small acts of kindness they commit that no one sees and so much love they give, much of it that goes thankless. It is all there: invisible and not always pretty, but still so very important. Realizing this, the ex-people-pleaser remembers to thank themselves for the whole of who they are — sometimes misunderstood yet nonetheless good. 

Kevin Gramling is a senior writing about his search for meaning during his time at USC in his column, “The (S)existentialist,” which runs every other Monday.