Welcome to Let It Be Easy with Susie Moore.

My friend, are you a pleaser?

If so, you definitely want to pay attention to today's episode,

a fable from ASOP, which was written over two and a half

thousand years ago. My friends, pleasing is not new. And the consequences of pleasing are

not new. And I'm delighted to read this fable to you today because it's kind of

hilarious if you ask me, but also completely relevant then, now, no matter the situation.

It is called the man and his two sweethearts. A middle-aged man, whose hair had begun to turn grey,

courted two women at the same time. One of them was young and the other well-advanced in years.

The elder woman, ashamed to be courted by a man younger than herself,

made a point whenever her admirer visited her to pull out some portion

of his black hairs. The younger, on the contrary, not wishing to become the wife of an old man,

was equally zealous in removing every grey hair she could find. Thus it came to pass that between

them both, he soon found that he had not a hair

left on his head. Those who seek to please everybody, please nobody. I love this old context

because it's funny, right? We can picture it. This poor man has two

sweethearts. One wants him to look older. One wants him to look younger. And they're each taking

from him what suits them. And as a result, he is left with nothing, my friends. If you try to please

everyone, least of all yourself, where do you think

you're going to end up over time? It is impossible to please all of the people. And if you think

about it, when you're tailoring yourself constantly to fit others' expectations of you, how you look, how

you sound, what you believe, what career you pursue, the relationships that you're in,

...