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Do you see yourself as someone who naturally has loads of compassion and empathy?
You always want help. You can’t bear to see someone hurt.
If you are like me growing up, you are also highly agreeable — you hardly say no.
These are loving qualities to have as a human being. But it’s the same thing that will ruin your life if you can’t manage yourself.
While you will appear loved on the surface. 90% of the people you know will only try to use and abuse you.
I used the think people loved humble and agreeable individuals for who they are.
Wrong!
Most people love you because they know you’ll be easy to use and abuse.
You may even notice it.
Which makes you wonder if you’re too empathetic. But then you’re not sure how to strike the balance so you don’t lose relationships with people.
Having learned my lessons the painful way, let me share a few things about empathetic and agreeable people, and what you can do to avoid getting used.
Are You Empathetic and Highly Agreeable?
Empaths naturally understand and care for the feelings of others.
One of the worst combinations to have is high amounts of empathy and agreeableness as a person.
Maybe you know you’re empathetic but not quite sure what it means to be agreeable.
As the name implies, agreeable people tend to accept what other people say or think.
And empathy wants to care about how other people feel.
Having both traits means you care about what other people think, and you also want them to have what they want every time.
This combination couldn’t be worse.
If anyone needs wisdom, it’s an empath who’s also highly agreeable.
Also Read: Don’t Fall for the Storyteller.
Can we go wrong doing good?
This a question empaths ask when we think the world is not giving back the goodness we give out.
Because you seem to find bad people everywhere you turn, it makes you wonder if you’re being too good.
I wondered about this too. “Should I become callous and cruel like others?
But to make things more complicated I stumbled on a quote by C. S. Lewis.
And it reads:
There is no excess of goodness. You cannot go too far in the right direction.
C. S. Lewis
Our Lord Jesus also said, “Bless those who curse you.”
This means I should continue showing love to others. But I know most people want to use and manipulate me. What do I do?
But over time I’ve realized the major problem is not being a good person.
You don’t want to stop helping others or to stop loving. That’s what makes you who you are.
You don’t want to become a tyrant, or someone on the extreme of a certain trait or personality type.
The problem isn’t being a good person; the solution isn’t becoming a tyrant.
The best answer is remaining a good person, but knowing when and where to draw the line.
The Solution to Excessive Empathy and Agreeableness
Recently I stumbled on information that connected all the dots in my quest to find an answer to this problem.
It was a YouTube video on Dr J. Perterson’s lecture regarding two personality traits: Agreeableness and Antagonism. But the title of the video on YouTube was “Too Nice? Rejected.”
(Caution: Never believe the titles on YouTube videos. You only get the true information when you watch the video.)
That was by the way.
In this video, Dr Peterson said,
…extremely agreeable people are empathetic, and compassionate and compliant. But the downside of that is that they are not that good at standing up for themselves and they are, and so they are often manipulated and pushed around.
“For example, they are not so good at negotiating for their own salaries.
“In my experience clinically has been that agreeable people, the consequence of their compliance is that they tend to be resentful.
“Just because that you are agreeable and compliant doesn’t mean that at some level of your psyche, you’re not interested in a fair deal. And if you are not particularly good at negotiating for yourself, especially in the presence of disagreeable or antagonistic people then you’re going to be left with the short end of the stick.
“I think the typical complaint of someone who is very agreeable is, ‘I do so much for other people and they seem to do so little for me.’ And so if you feel that way, there is a reasonable probability that you’re are agreeable, there is some probability that you are too agreeable and, maybe, you should stop being so easy to get along with.
That’s the short and simple solution! “Stop being so easy to get along with!”
When it doesn’t work out for you say “No.”
You have as much right to say no to something that doesn’t work well for you, just as the next person.
Too Much Need For Acceptance and Validation
One problem with most empaths is doing things so people will accept you and love you.
Many times the root cause of this is how we grew up.
We haven’t had much experience with people who love us for being real and standing up for ourselves.
So we’ve internalized having to do something for love. And that often involves doing things for others even when we don’t want to.
If you’ve been living this way, trust me, you’re doing it all wrong.
At some point it will become obvious that your show of love, humility, listening ear was mostly done out of the need to be accepted.
At some point intelligent folks will know you did many things you didn’t like.
While they may have liked you for being good at first, when the truth about you comes to the surface, they’ll think of you as a pretender maybe even a fool.
This is why you need to promptly destroy shyness and low self esteem if it’s a problem.
With these two things, 90% of your life will be fake while you’ll be busy telling yourself you’re a good person.
- I tell you, people who love and respect you will understand when you refuse to do things that don’t work well for you.
- Others who frown when you say “no” are mostly antagonists or narcissists who just want to use you.
Walk away now! That is the last kind of person you want to spend your life with as an empathetic person.
If you don’t leave on time, believe me, they will use the life out of you.
If you continue under pressure you will kill your goodness
Living under antagonizing pressure as an empathetic person changes you.
Over time you may become suicidal. You end up overworked, stressed, bitter, resentful.
Pressure destroys creativity. It will affect your performance and confidence. It overloads the nervous system.
This is why your shyness gets worse if you are an agreeable empath.
You’ll simply end up a 30-fold person, achieving way less in life when you were created to be a 100-fold person.
This is because while others are using 80% of their time and energy on themselves and their dreams, you’ll be using 80% of your time and energy pleasing others.
And you know what? You blame others for it.
When the person you should blame is yourself.
Learn to Say No!
Say no and be okay with it. The world will not end — The same way it doesn’t end when others say no to you.
No one will die. They’ll get angry and after a few hours, maybe a day or two, we’ll all calm down. Life continues.
If they don’t work it out with you, it just shows their true intention towards you.
Wrapping Up
Empathy is a good trait, but don’t allow people to abuse it.
Learn to let them share the pain. If they are bringing a problem, instead of doing everything for them, just tell them the solution and leave it there.
If they send you somewhere make them pay the bills.
If you want people to love you, be yourself. If you are simple and agreeable, eventually everyone will consider you foolish.
Even those who love you now will not find you so desirable anymore.
- What happens when you say “I failed in school because I was helping someone with their homework?”
- “I lost my glory because I wanted to make a girl or boy happy?”
- Are you wasting your intelligence because you spend more time helping others than expanding your knowledge?
When the dust settles, you’ll be the fool in the story. Don’t be the fool. Stand your ground. Make Choices you can live with.
Learn to make enough room for yourself in your life.
- Don’t be easy.
- Don’t be impossible.
- Do what is right.
- Don’t cheat yourself.
- Anyone who doesn’t like it should deal with it.
This way, you will do more for yourself; achieve more; earn more respect; and the best part is that you will only attract people who will make your life better.
Ultimately, you will end up very happy.
