Pleasing Others Only Displeases Yourself by Audrey

Pleasing Others Only Displeases Yourself by Audrey - July 2025 Scholarship Essay

Pleasing everyone will get you nowhere.
My parents' relationship was over before I was born, so I grew up switching between two houses. I had a back-and-forth bag, two Christmases, two sets of rules, and two different lives. All that was my normal, but what also became my normal was pleasing everyone I could. With two completely different sets of rules, I developed two distinct personalities; one that fit my mom's expectations and one that fit my dad's expectations, but what ended up neglected was my wants and needs.
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to dance, sing, and immerse myself in music. So, when I was young, I danced, but that quickly changed when my dad decided he didn’t want that for me. So then I did gymnastics, which I also was taken out of because he didn’t want that for me. Then, finally, came Junior High. When it was time to choose my last sport for the semester, I had to choose between dance and track. My dad told me I was to do a “real sport,” so to please him, I did track. Then in high school, when I wanted to do cheer, I again backed down to not rock the boat. I gave up my favorite thing in the world to just fit his expectations.
As I got further into high school, I continued giving up what I loved to fit his expectations of me and be the “perfect” daughter. Once I got to college, I realized I didn’t know who I was. I had spent most of my life trying to please everyone around me to the point where I didn’t know who I was. If I could return to that little girl, I would tell her to live for herself and stop pleasing others, because at the end of the day, the only person whose opinion matters is her own.