“The only thing mistakes should result in is growth”- Bemili Jarron. My favorite mistake is a mistake I’ve unknowingly made all my life, and that’s the mistake of being a people pleaser. Being a people pleaser is horrible for no one but the person doing the pleasing, which is why I didn’t really catch on until my sophomore year of high school. There’s a lot of situations I could talk about because it’s consumed and has been one of the biggest issues in my life. But for this essay I’m going to talk about the one that opened my eyes the most. 

It happened in 2020 during quarantine. It was a weird year, especially since I was around my family 24\7, and I didn’t have the personality yet to peacefully live with them. It was like a sheep living with a pack of wolves. It was a day during the winter, it was freezing and I was laying on the couch under a blanket talking to my brother. My mom was sitting on the other couch and my sister was talking to her when she cut her off, to quickly ask me “can you wash my clothes?”. Then goes back to talking to my mom without needing to hear my answer because they never heard me say no. Which would’ve been fine, if I had not recently decided to try to fix my people pleasing habit. So I said ”no”, and explained I was comfy and it was freezing in the garage where the washing machine was. She asked me again “can you wash my clothes?”. I say the same thing again thinking she didn’t hear me. She asks again, acting like she didn’t hear me, this time in a more angry, patronizing tone “ I   said   can you wash my clothes”. This time I just said “no”. 

She blew up at me  “You’re so selfish! I can't believe you! Why can't you just wash my clothes! You’re literally so selfish! I can't believe you! You're literally just sitting on your *ss not doing anything! Why are you acting like this! I’m literally cleaning my room!” (she wasn’t btw. I later ended up cleaning it since she was moving out, it was disgusting.) I kept telling her it wasn’t my responsibility, and that she should just do it. Then my mom intervened, and to my surprise, she sided with my sister. Mind you I was 14 and she was 22. My mom got up from the couch all mad and yelled in Spanish “stop arguing! I can't believe you, why can’t you just do this for your sister!”. Me being pretty surprised, I knew I had to stand my ground or nothing would ever change, even if it felt wrong and was easier to just say yes. So i told her, “that’s not my responsibility, and I don’t want to”. My sister keeps yelling at me and really angry my mom yells “fine! I’ll wash the clothes' ', then she turns to me and says “when did you get so selfish?! I get home tired from work and you’re really making me do this?” It ends there, I try to act like it was nothing to me and keep talking to my brother. My mom goes to wash the clothes and my sister goes to “clean” her room but actually just lays down and goes on her phone.

I know the whole situation seems like not that big a deal, it seemed like that to me too at first. But as I thought about it more and grew, looking back It really made me see, people will treat you how you let yourself be treated. Something as small and simple as not washing someone else’s clothes caused a huge argument because they saw me as a pushover. I was disrespecting myself by not setting boundaries so others thought they could too. I could choose to see this moment and the many other times I let myself be a pushover as regrets. Or I could see it as a lesson, Times in my life that I’ve grown from and has made me a better person. Instead of letting those experiences go to waste I choose to see them as situations that needed to happen so I could keep moving up.