A friend recently posted this on Instagram: I’d rather be someone’s shot of whiskey than everyone’s cup of tea. I spent a whole lot of energy trying to be everybody’s cup of tea and a) it wasn’t fun, and b) it didn’t work. I’d wager that we all do this at some point—contort ourselves into people-pleasing pretzels—and I’d also wager that the roots of this often can be found somewhere in our early lives. Who was it that first made us believe something was wrong with us, that something needed fixing? … Those injuries, small or large, are what form our early sense of ourselves. And a sense of our own value is the only way we can parse criticism and rejection—take what’s useful and shrug off the rest.