How Can I Please You?

How Can I Please You?



“How can I please you?”

Do you understand the importance of that question?  Does it seem trivial to you?

Being able to ask others that question is very important.  It can make you a pleasant social entity.  It’s a great privilege to have others with whom you can ask that question.  It shouldn’t be taken for granted or under-appreciated.  It’s a great honor and pleasant luxury.

When you no longer have interest to ask that question, and when you no longer have time to answer that question, then don’t be surprised if your social connections suffer or deteriorate.

Do you understand that if you have to spend most of your time tending to your own care, then you have less time to ask others:  How can I please you?

I don’t necessarily mean you ask the question literally.  I mean that through your actions you pursue answers to that question.

If you have to spend much of your time working just to meet your own needs, then you have less time to please others.  If you have to spend most of your days tending to your own poor health issues, then you can’t be spending that time pleasing others.


The reason I take care of my health is because I know too many people who spend much of their days tending to their own ailments.  I want time to please others.  I want to make people laugh, be silly, take immature photos, play sports, sing songs, listen to music, watch movies, and fix what is broken around me.

I don’t stay fit to stay fit.  I try to stay fit because I don’t want to get to a place where most of my days are spent facilitating my health needs.  I don’t want to be a person who spends too much time consuming.  I don’t want to consume so much that I have to spend too much time working.

For example, one of the many reasons I don’t smoke is I don’t see how the activity could help me please others.  It seems like an incestuous activity in that it only feeds the need it re-creates in an internal cycle.  It doesn’t do anything good for anyone beyond the person in the consumption cycle.  Why would I create a dependency on something that creates no pleasures for anyone but myself?  I wouldn’t.

The general question I ask is:  Will this help me please others?  If it doesn’t, I recognize the costs of the decisions and avoid those activities.

I do well interacting with people who make time in their lives and protect their time so they have time to please those around them.  I don’t do well with people who either a) don’t ask the question:  How can I please others? or b) busy up their time so much they don’t regularly have significant time to please others – even if they think they liked to.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

If you ever encounter other people who are intent on sincerely answering the question:  How can I please you?  If you ever befriend someone who makes time to answer the question: How can I please you?  If you ever find someone who is reasonably good at pleasing you, then don’t be a fool by under-appreciating their worth.  Those people are very rare.  Treasure them.  Never let them go.

Turn off your TV.  Put down your book.  Turn off your Facebook and computer games.  Dial back on your work.  Do whatever you can to give those few good people the time and reciprocation they want and deserve.