How to Be A Pushover
(a tongue-in-cheek exploration)
How to Become a Pushover: Instructions You Never Knew You Needed
Be nice. Unfailingly. Always. To all and sundry. Keep treating people well even when they treat you badly. Any ill-intent towards you must be your fault anyway.
Have zero edge. Be like a smooth stone, rough edges sandpapered down. Become so smooth that you slip in and out of spaces without causing the slightest stir.
Have a harmless face. Bonus points if someone once called it “placid as a cow.”
Your priority should be to avoid causing offense. At all costs. Your people-pleasing skills will come in handy.
Read the room obsessively. Master your emotional radar at a remarkably young age, before even developing your radar for hunger and thirst. Be always attuned to others’ moods and tones.
Be a chameleon. Shapeshift to please those around you till you no longer know your original color.
Be completely oblivious to manipulation. If you see through it, let yourself be manipulated anyway. Stay trusting, yet suspicious. Never, ever get cynical.
Be eager. Like a hyperactive puppy. Even when indifference is smarter. Remain eager, even when you would be better off with the slightly supercilious air of a cat.
Never say no. Or say no, but then hem and haw and finally end up doing the thing you said no to.
If hurt, freeze and stay silent. Cry later. Alone. While perfecting imaginary comebacks that you will never deliver.
Chase perfection. Even try to perfect imperfection. Fail miserably. Blame yourself.
Believe the Universe is against you. Assume you can’t change it. Struggle to find agency and fail. End up passively buffeted by the winds of fortune.
Grow up isolated. Bonus points: Attend boarding school by age 5. Perfect for cultivating attachment issues.
Develop a crippling need for connection. Also, a crippling inability to form it.
Be boundary-less. Let everyone in. Show the world your perfect open-border policy: no checkpoints, no limits, no “do not enter” signs. Watch them take what they need and leave when they’re done. Then thank them for visiting.
In your eagerness for connection, get too close too soon. Realize your mistake, but stay trapped.
If possible, grow up with one short-tempered and one emotionally unavailable, distant parent. The perfect training ground for staying hidden and walking on eggshells throughout life.
Skip childhood fun. Be conscientious to a fault. Always do your “duty” instead. You are the responsible one.
Move abroad. End up alone. Survive by pleasing others. Here’s where your people-pleasing skills will come in handy.
Dream of more. Die quietly inside every time you think of a dream unfulfilled.
Pick up others’ slack. Spouse, child, coworker—it’s all yours.
Never voice opinions. Or voice them meekly, then retreat.
Crumble under criticism. Replay it in your head for years.
Be told as a kid to “stop the self-pity.” Learn that pain must be hidden.
Doubt your abilities. Second-guess everything. Especially yourself.
Stay small. Take up zero space. If you have a room and can fit in a closet, go there.
Be indecisive. Don’t just stay on the fence; spend your lifetime on it.
On the other hand…
How NOT to Become a Pushover: Instructions You Always Knew You Needed
Never pick up others’ slack. Remember: not your circus, not your monkey.
See a loose thread? Do not touch it. Pretend you do not see it. It’s not even there.
Feign ignorance of skills you may have. You probably can do everything, but you shouldn’t. Enjoy the peace.
Act like undone things don’t bother you. Let the silence pressure them for once.
Conveniently “forget” tasks. Selective amnesia is a survival skill.
Trust the Universe has your back. Or at least, act like it does.
State your position. Loudly. Even when everyone disagrees. Especially then.
Always have a comeback ready. Even if it’s a weak one.
Alternatively, stay silent—but with intent. Voicelessly broadcast that you have things to say, but deliberately chose not to.
Be the dead center of the storm. Perfectly still. Let others flail around you.
Embrace cynicism. It is an armor. It has its uses.
Stop chasing approval. Approve yourself. You don’t need their applause to exist.
Be content. With. Everything. Exactly As Is. Needing nothing makes you unshakable.
Walk into a room like you own it. You belong. Everywhere.
Don’t agonize about hurting feelings. Boundaries hurt sometimes.
Be loud. Occasionally, shout from rooftops.
Say biting things. Let your words have teeth. Bark at times, even if you don’t bite. Let people be a little afraid of what you might do.
This hit home!
Brutal and hilarious. Major dark humor :) Love it :)