Helping people when you are a people pleaser is like crack to a crack head; rescuing the helpless is a pleaser’s drug of choice.

Consider ambulance-chasing lawyers searching hungrily for the next accident victim to take to the promise land of insurance riches; the barristers’ motives for money are masked by the rush to aid the injured.

We frown upon these types of people, who take advantage of the weak and helpless, but people pleasers are no different. People pleasers often swoop down upon the emotionally injured like superheroes saving the weak and innocent.

“Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out - it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” Robert Service (1874 - 1958)

Petty is as petty does. Pretty is a better alternative.

Mr. Service says that the trivial and the petty are the enemy of the pretty. Focusing on who doesn’t like us or whether we can afford to buy a new trifle at the mall, is a waste of precious time. This behavior is petty and sets up feelings of worthlessness and limits.

Divorce. Abandonment. Molestation. Poverty. Child abuse. Life-threatening illness. Rape. Cancer. Death or Murder of a parental figure.

If you experienced any of these challenges as a child, it sucked.

I myself can check a few of these situations off of my own personal list of unpleasant childhood experiences.  If you were fortunate, social services came to your rescue; administered comprehensive mental treatment; kissed all your boo boos and helped to take the pain away. I didn’t have that type of idyllic childhood filled with psychologists and positive thinking.

I just can’t stand an excuse.

As an “Ivy” pledging AKA over 18 years ago (for those readers not familiar with Black greekdom AKA is Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated), we frequently recited a powerful maxim for our big sisters entitled “Excuses.”

If I shut my eyes, I can see 22 young and exhausted girls standing together in a line saying these words, “Excuses, excuses are tools of the incompetent; they build monuments to nothing and those who use them seldom amount to anything.”

Truer words were never spoken.

Can you spot the female doormat in a crowd?

She’s the kind of girl who quickly utters polite words when asked if your baby is cute, even though it’s not and says, “I’m sorry and Excuse me,” when you bump into her.

She abides perfectly by all the established rules of decorum and etiquette for fear of disappointing anyone. With an elephantine memory for dates and special occasions, the quintessential doormat remembers every birthday, anniversary and celebration with precision.

The doormat certainly gives great gifts.