From My Old Diary | On People-Pleasing, Forgotten Grudges, and the Question of When Enough Becomes Enough

Closets are suspicious places. They appear perfectly innocent from the outside, standing quietly against the wall, offering the comforting illusion that everything in life has been properly organised. Open one, however, and you may discover clothes you have not worn in years, objects whose original purposes remain a mystery, and enough evidence of your former personality to make you question whether you have always possessed sound judgement. I sometimes suspect that wardrobes are less concerned with storing our belongings than preserving material that can embarrass us in the future. They keep our secrets faithfully, only to surrender them without resistance the moment we decide to do a little cleaning.

And that was how an ordinary afternoon of organising my closet turned into an unexpected appointment with my younger self.

I had begun with respectable intentions. There were things to rearrange, belongings to sort, and boxes that had been occupying valuable space without making any meaningful contribution to my daily life. I was determined to be productive, which is something I occasionally attempt when procrastination has exhausted all its more entertaining alternatives. I opened one box, examined its contents, and discovered the usual collection of forgotten possessions. Then, beneath the ordinary clutter, I noticed something familiar.

My old diary.

Ah, yes. That dangerous little object.

It was dusty, neglected, and looked as though it had spent several years waiting patiently for an opportunity to ruin my afternoon. I recognised it immediately. There was a time when I trusted those pages with thoughts I would never have dared to say aloud, believing that a diary was the safest place to keep the emotions I could not quite explain to other people. It had witnessed my frustrations, disappointments, private arguments, and probably a few declarations that seemed exceptionally profound when I first wrote them.

I knew perfectly well that opening it would be a questionable decision.

Naturally, I opened it anyway.

You see, there are two voices inside my head whenever I encounter something from the past. One belongs to the sensible version of me, who understands that certain memories have been left undisturbed for perfectly good reasons. The other is an interfering little creature whose entire philosophy can be summarised in two words: READ IT!

Unfortunately, the second voice is usually more entertaining.

And so, with the curiosity of somebody investigating a scandal involving herself, I began turning the pages.

Tadaaaa!

There she was.

My younger self, writing with the emotional intensity of a woman who had apparently reached the absolute limits of human patience before even reaching adulthood.

The entry was dated December 22, 2010.

I read the words slowly, recognising the frustration behind them even though the circumstances that inspired them had become less important to me. I had written about trying too hard to please everybody, about caring for people who did not always return the same consideration, and about the disappointment of discovering that affection and trust did not guarantee fair treatment.

Apparently, I had been having a rather dramatic December.

But beneath the dramatic declarations was a feeling I could still understand.

For much of my younger life, I wanted people to like me. I wanted to be considered kind, dependable, and understanding. If somebody needed help, I wanted to offer it. If there was a disagreement, I preferred to find a way to restore harmony. I believed that treating people well would encourage them to treat me with the same consideration.

It seemed like a perfectly reasonable arrangement.

Be kind, and kindness will return. Be loyal, and loyalty will be recognised. Care sincerely, and people will appreciate the effort.

Unfortunately, human relationships have never been particularly interested in honouring arrangements they did not agree to.

I gradually discovered that people could interpret kindness differently. Some appreciated it. Others became accustomed to it. A few seemed to consider generosity an unlimited resource that could be requested whenever convenient. And I, being somewhat inexperienced in the difficult business of establishing personal boundaries, often struggled to recognise when I was giving more than I could reasonably sustain.

There were times when I agreed to things I did not particularly want to do because disappointing somebody felt worse than inconveniencing myself. I worried about what people might think if I refused a request, expressed disagreement, or admitted that I had needs of my own. I confused being considerate with being constantly available, as though friendship required me to surrender my opinions whenever they threatened somebody else’s comfort.

What a remarkable little arrangement I had created.

Everybody was entitled to their preferences, provided mine remained negotiable.

Looking back, I can appreciate how exhausting that must have become.

There is something particularly frustrating about realising that the approval you have worked so hard to earn is not necessarily accompanied by genuine understanding. You can spend an extraordinary amount of time adjusting yourself to meet other people’s expectations and still discover that somebody is dissatisfied.

Perhaps you were not helpful enough. Perhaps you failed to respond quickly enough. Perhaps you finally expressed an opinion that did not match what somebody wanted to hear.

And suddenly, all your previous efforts seem to have disappeared from consideration.

I think that was what my younger self found so difficult to accept.

She wanted relationships to make sense. She wanted fairness to operate like a reliable mathematical formula. If she offered kindness, she expected kindness in return. If she trusted someone, she hoped that trust would be respected. If she made sacrifices for people she cared about, she believed they would recognise the sincerity behind them.

But people are not equations, and affection does not come with a guarantee.

Somewhere along the way, disappointment had taught me that lesson rather painfully.

Reading the diary, I noticed how determined I had been to protect myself from experiencing the same hurt again. I declared that I would stop pleasing everybody, stop trusting so easily, and stop allowing other people’s behaviour to influence my sense of worth. I wanted to abandon the version of myself who had been excessively accommodating and replace her with somebody more guarded, more decisive, and considerably less willing to tolerate nonsense.

I sounded absolutely furious.

And rather impressive, if I may say so.

There was something almost theatrical about the confidence with which I announced my personal transformation. Apparently, one unpleasant chapter had convinced me that I could simply retire my former personality and introduce a replacement before the year ended.

Out with the trusting girl. In with the woman who would never again be fooled.

A complete character renovation, scheduled for immediate implementation.

If only human nature were so cooperative.

The truth is that changing our behaviour requires more than making an angry declaration in a diary. We may decide that we will never repeat a particular mistake, only to find ourselves facing a similar situation with the same familiar instincts. We may promise to become less accommodating and still feel uncomfortable saying no. We may recognise that somebody has treated us unfairly while continuing to care about what happens to them.

I suppose that is because our emotions do not always update themselves according to our latest resolutions.

And perhaps they should not.

As I continued reading, I began to feel a little sympathy for that younger version of me. Beneath her frustration was somebody who wanted to be treated with the same sincerity she believed she had offered others. She was disappointed, perhaps embarrassed by her own willingness to trust, and determined never to feel quite so vulnerable again.

I understand that impulse.

When somebody disappoints us, it can be tempting to conclude that the safest response is to become entirely different. We imagine that if we stop caring, stop trusting, or stop allowing ourselves to become attached, we will somehow become immune to the difficulties that accompany relationships.

But I wonder whether such protection comes at a price.

If I become suspicious of everybody because a few people have disappointed me, I may eventually treat people unfairly who have done nothing to deserve it. If I refuse to be kind because someone once took advantage of my generosity, I risk surrendering a part of my character to the very experience I wanted to leave behind.

And if I allow one painful relationship to determine how I approach every future friendship, have I truly reclaimed control?

That question would probably have irritated my younger self enormously.

She was not in the mood for philosophical complications. She wanted justice, preferably accompanied by a dramatic announcement that she had finally had enough.

I can almost imagine her rolling her eyes at me.

But perhaps there is a difference between abandoning people-pleasing and abandoning kindness.

I can care about someone without accepting every request they make. I can offer help without making myself responsible for everything that happens in their life. I can forgive a disappointment without pretending that trust has automatically been restored. And I can recognise somebody else’s feelings without allowing those feelings to determine every decision I make.

These distinctions seem perfectly obvious when written down, yet they can be surprisingly difficult to practise.

Especially when we have spent years believing that being a good person means keeping everybody happy.

The more I thought about it, the more I questioned the expression enough is enough.

When do we actually reach that point?

Is it when someone disappoints us for the first time? When we recognise a repeated pattern? When the effort required to maintain a relationship becomes unreasonable? Or when we finally admit that we have been tolerating something because we are afraid of what might happen if we stop?

I suspect the answer depends on the circumstances.

There is no universal number of chances we are required to give, no official threshold at which disappointment becomes unacceptable, and no obligation to continue a relationship simply because we have already invested considerable time in it.

At the same time, not every disagreement represents betrayal. People misunderstand one another. They make mistakes, respond poorly, and occasionally behave with a lack of consideration that they may later regret. Relationships require patience, communication, and a willingness to acknowledge our own shortcomings as well as those of others.

The challenge is learning to recognise the difference between an ordinary human mistake and a pattern that repeatedly undermines our wellbeing.

My younger self had not yet developed much patience for that distinction.

According to her diary, she was finished.

Completely finished.

No more excessive kindness. No more trusting people too easily. No more making herself available to those who failed to appreciate her efforts.

I can almost hear the imaginary dramatic music accompanying those declarations.

And yet, reading them now, I find myself smiling rather than becoming upset.

The memories are still there, but their emotional importance has changed. The people and circumstances that once occupied so much of my attention no longer possess the same influence over my daily life. I can remember being disappointed without feeling compelled to revisit every detail.

Perhaps that is one of the curious benefits of keeping a diary.

It preserves the things we once considered enormously important, allowing us to encounter them years later with a perspective we did not possess at the time. The words remain exactly where we left them, but the person reading them has changed.

An angry paragraph can become amusing. A painful memory can become something we examine with greater understanding. A declaration that once seemed final can reveal how much we still had to learn.

I rather like that.

Not because every disappointment eventually becomes insignificant, but because it reminds me that my present feelings do not necessarily represent the final interpretation of my experiences.

There were things I genuinely needed to change about how I approached relationships. I needed to understand that saying no was not automatically an act of selfishness, that disagreement did not have to destroy affection, and that my worth was not determined by how successfully I satisfied other people’s expectations.

Those were important lessons.

But I did not need to become unkind in order to learn them.

Perhaps that is what I would tell the girl who wrote those words on December 22, 2010. I would tell her that she was allowed to feel disappointed, that she did not have to justify every boundary, and that she could reconsider relationships that consistently demanded more than they offered.

I would also remind her that caring deeply was not something she needed to be ashamed of.

The problem was never simply that she cared.

It was that she sometimes forgot to include herself among the people deserving consideration.

Of course, I doubt she would have listened immediately. She was young, upset, and probably convinced that she had finally understood everything there was to know about human nature.

I remember that particular confidence rather well.

It has embarrassed me on several occasions.

After reading the entry, I closed the diary and looked at the dusty box from which it had emerged. The afternoon had begun as an ordinary attempt to organise my belongings, yet somehow I had ended up conducting an informal investigation into my former personality.

I had expected to discover forgotten objects.

Instead, I found forgotten opinions, unfinished frustrations, and a younger version of myself who had apparently been preparing to declare independence from the entire human population.

Honestly, Anj. What a performance.

The funny thing is that I no longer remember every reason I felt so strongly when I wrote that entry. Some details have become less distinct, and others no longer seem worth discussing. What remains is the recognition that I was learning, rather awkwardly, how to balance kindness with self-respect.

I am still learning, for that matter.

There are occasions when I find myself agreeing too quickly, worrying unnecessarily about somebody’s reaction, or feeling guilty for establishing a perfectly reasonable boundary. Old habits do not always disappear simply because we have finally recognised them.

But at least I am more aware of them.

And that is something.

I have decided to share portions of my old diary here on the blog, partly because I find these forgotten entries entertaining and partly because they remind me how much our perspectives can change over time. There is something amusing about allowing my younger self to become an occasional guest writer, particularly when she possesses such an impressive talent for dramatic declarations.

I must warn you, however, that she was not always reasonable.

She could be sentimental, stubborn, overly trusting, and occasionally convinced that one disappointing afternoon justified a complete reassessment of humanity.

In other words, she was young.

And perhaps that is reason enough to treat her with a little affection.

As for the diary, I have returned it to its place among my belongings. It remains dusty, rather dramatic, and undoubtedly filled with other entries that future cleaning sessions may tempt me to investigate.

I suspect there are more surprises waiting between those pages.

But for today, I have discovered quite enough.

Which is rather appropriate, considering the subject of the entry.

On December 22, 2010, I asked when I could finally say that enough was enough. I thought the answer involved becoming somebody who no longer cared quite so much.

Now, I am beginning to think it means knowing when to stop making myself responsible for everybody else’s happiness.

And perhaps the next time I decide to clean my closet, I should remember that organising old belongings is a perfectly respectable activity until one begins reading confidential correspondence from a former version of oneself.

Then it becomes an archaeological expedition.

With emotional consequences.

From my diary, originally written on December 22, 2010. Shared with considerably less anger, a little more understanding, and the sincere hope that my younger self will forgive me for publishing her private declarations.

— Just Anj

P.S. Shhh! Consider this a little secret between me and my readers. If you happen to know the younger Anj personally, please refrain from informing her that her future self has developed a rather unfortunate habit of publishing her diary entries. Hahaha!