Ladies and gentlemen, listen right now, I would like to introduce our second guest post. Rachel Newton Parker was born on a sunny day in Oklahoma (I have no idea if this is true, but I choose to believe that it was sunny). She is the oldest of 6 children which explains why she is excellent at giving advice, guilt tripping, and driving a stick shift. She is my therapist. I am not kidding, if she charged me for the number of times she has helped me calm down or work through a problem, she would be a rich lady! Rachel is the one that gets the calls when I have no idea what I am thinking. I'll explain the situation and she will tell me exactly what is going on in my CRAZY brain. And you know what, she is always right! I don't know if it is because she is so observant, has learned how people think, or because I am predictable. Let's just say she gives really good advice, which is why I instantly thought she would be great for a guest post. Here she is, the magnificent Rachel Parker!!!
Why do we all like Elaine so much? There are tons and tons of reasons, I know. One of them, I think, is that she likes us. She knows me – not the “my hair is done, my makeup is on, I am wearing one of the few outfits I own that looks decent on me, I’m in public so I am not yelling at my kids, calm, collected, I have it together” self – but my real self. And she likes me. For real. Whenever I talk to her on the phone, she says things like, “You are awesome.” or “That is fabulous.”
(Sorry for embarrassing you, Elaine!)
It feels really good to know that people like us. We want to be loved, and we need to feel loved. But I think that we also need to feel liked. Way back when I started dating my husband, I didn’t love him yet. But I really liked him. The things about him that were different than the other guys I knew. And the reason that I was so happy dating him was because I knew that he liked me.
I have a friend that I met the first year of Freshman Orientation. We aren’t very good at keeping in touch. In fact, we’ve been lousy at it. But we keep trying, because we want to stay friends. I want to be friends with her, because I like her. I know that if I got to spend time with her tomorrow, we would have fun, because I really like HER.
My dad was really good at telling us things he liked about us. He didn’t often say the kind of sappy things that belong in Hallmark cards, but he often told us that he liked certain things about who we were, who were becoming, things he was glad that we did. It made us like us.
So, how can we help people be happier? We can tell them that we like them – specific things about them that we like. We can be more like Elaine that way. “I really like the quirky movie quotes you use, the funny way you raise your eyebrows at me, your style, etc.”
We like people. Let’s tell them we like them.
