Pleasing Everybody

The well-known fable below, outlines perfectly the consequences of pleasing everybody.  Everybody wants everybody else to please them which is impossible.  When we try to please everybody, we are made to look stupid and unprofessional, and worst yet we are torn apart bit by bit until we no longer recognize ourselves.  At the end of the day, there is only one person you should be really pleasing and that is God Almighty and when we seek to please him first, then we in turn please others.

The Miller, His Son, and Their Donkey 

A MILLER and his son were driving their donkey to a neighbouring fair to sell him. They had not gone far when they met with a troop of women collected round a well, talking and laughing. "Look there," cried one of them, "did you ever see such fellows, to be trudging along the road on foot when they might ride?' The old man hearing this, quickly made his son mount the donkey, and continued to walk along merrily by his side. Presently they came up to a group of old men in earnest debate. "There," said one of them, "it proves what I was a-saying. What respect is shown to old age in these days? Do you see that idle lad riding while his old father has to walk? Get down, you young scapegrace, and let the old man rest his weary limbs." Upon this the old man made his son dismount, and got up himself. In this manner they had not proceeded far when they met a company of women and children: "Why, you lazy old fellow," cried several tongues at once, "how can you ride upon the beast, while that poor little lad there can hardly keep pace by the side of you?' The good-natured Miller immediately took up his son behind him. They had now almost reached the town. "Pray, honest friend," said a citizen, "is that donkey your own?' "Yes," replied the old man. "O, one would not have thought so," said the other, "by the way you load him. Why, you two fellows are better able to carry the poor beast than he you." "Anything to please you," said the old man; "we can but try." So, alighting with his son, they tied the legs of the donkey together and with the help of a pole endeavoured to carry him on their shoulders over a bridge near the entrance to the town. This entertaining sight brought the people in crowds to laugh at it, till the donkey, not liking the noise nor the strange handling that he was subject to, broke the cords that bound him and, tumbling off the pole, fell into the river. Upon this, the old man, vexed and ashamed, made the best of his way home again, convinced that by endeavouring to please everybody he had pleased nobody, and lost his donkey in the bargain.

When Life Doesn't Cooperate

Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Incident

Something happened to me recently that upset me, well, it shook me to the core to be more specific. I am one of those pocket of women who have horrible monthly periods (nausea, excruciating menstrual cramps and heavy flows). I try my very best to deal with it but the worst part is, no monthly period is ever the same and I have to adjust a little every month (my body fiercely reminded me of that in no uncertain terms). I had come to expect the occasional gush of blood along with the flow but this month in particular, I don't know if my hormones went ballistic or what but a mini flash flood came and the sanitary napkin and I were powerless to stop it. Needless to say, I had blood rushing down my legs onto the floor.


When the rubber meets the road

When the clean-up was completed, I lay on my bed and cried.  Then it occurred to me, this thing could happen when I get married and what would my perfect husband say or how would he react. Would he be a gentleman and be understanding to what women go through, or would he think that this woman he’d married is really a girl in a woman’s body who cannot control her periods.

So I said to myself ‘Maybe I shouldn’t get married’ I don’t want to frighten this man or seriously traumatized him for the rest of his natural life.  I can’t do this! I can’t put this huge burden on him. So my first instinct was to run and cower in fear.

'Men (some men) don't want to know our female problems even when we're carrying their child' one may say.  Thank God that just as no two of my monthly periods are alike, no two men are alike either.  At the end of the day, we need to first shed our insecurities and trust issues, then the God-given instincts would kick-in and we would be better able to separate the idiots from the real men.  Men who would not faint or puke at the first sign of blood.