The Universe: No Nonsense There

Over the last few years, I have come to realize that the Universe makes no mistakes. It’s a cliché, but it’s also true. The Universe will also present me with the same lesson—until it is certain I have learned it.

Let’s not discuss the science or religion on this. And whether this is empirically true (who cares), we can all think of instances where it was, well, true for us. Everyone has this sense of the Universe being, well, universal in its wisdom.

Maybe many of you have already come to this conclusion about the Universe. But I come by things the hard way. I like to learn all my lessons with a side of drama, trauma and 20-pound weight gain. Clearly.

I’ll explain how things happened today.

I woke up this morning in a mood. I didn’t sleep and everyone in my house was to blame. Which means that no one was to blame, but that’s how I came storming down the stairs.

My husband said, “You literally drove our child out of the room with your barking” to which I responded, “Are you calling me a dog?? Barking?!”

I still have no real idea what the heck was going on with me, but it was the proverbial woke-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed, and I was making terror wherever I went.

After a few hours of calls with credit card companies to put me in a good mood, I made a list of things that I realize are important to me having a good day:

• I must have coffee.
• I must avoid sugar for the most part (it’s the major evil-inducing factor for me).
• I must workout.

On the last note, I huffed off to the gym and planted myself on the elliptical, thinking about the task I had at hand tonight.

So back to the Universe makes no mistakes, which is how I started this post.

Tonight was the first Zoom call for my new community, and I decided while I was angrily working out my mood on the elliptical that I would talk mainly about people-pleasing. People-pleasing is a topic that I write about a lot and it comes up on the daily in my coaching practice. It’s a people-pleasing topic—to say the least.

I wanted to open my meeting (as I usually do) with an inspired quote or reading, or something of the sort, so I grabbed the biggest tome of a book I could find: Tim Ferriss’ Tools of Titans, and I opened the 600-page beast.

I said to myself, “Something on people-pleasing would be great.” And then I laughed: As if I am just going to open this giant book and find something about people-pleasing.

I flipped past interviews with Tony Robbins and Daymond John, and there it was: “People-pleasing is a form of a-holery” – a quote by comedian Whitney Cummings. (I can’t make this stuff up. Hello Universe.)

She explained that when we are people-pleasing that we are just causing the other people to be “resentful because you’re being disingenuous, and you’re not giving them the dignity of their own experience and [assuming] they can’t handle the truth. It’s patronizing.”

In reading that quote, I realized that even though I shot out of a cannon this morning in a mood that was opposite of people-pleasing, it was the people-pleasing of the day prior that had impacted me.

I was not honest with my husband about how I was feeling, and I woke up resentful. In doing so, I was harming my own integrity—by trying to make sure others were happy—at my own expense. At the expense of my own mental health, mood and productivity.

Pulling myself into line takes a lot of lists, promises and know-how, it’s true.

But I have learned (thank you, Universe) that sticking to honesty (and avoiding people-pleasing) is a major lesson I can (finally) stop learning the hard way.