How do you stop trying to please everyone?
You are trying to arrange a reunion. One person wants a restaurant. Another says restaurants are impersonal. Someone wants an evening; someone else prefers lunch. Each time you change the plan, a different person is disappointed.
At some point, the task quietly changes. You are no longer trying to arrange a reasonable gathering. You are trying to find the version nobody can object to.
That version may not exist. People can want incompatible things without any of them being unreasonable. Stopping the attempt to please everyone means allowing a sound decision to remain a decision someone would have preferred differently.
A Spark from The Vision
Whatever you do, people will form opinions, and perhaps express them: some approving and some disapproving. Even dead people have critics.
There is still work to do before calling the disagreement unavoidable. A relative who cannot enter a venue has raised a different problem from someone who dislikes its décor. A person expected to travel a long way may need more notice. These concerns affect whether people can actually take part.
Listening carefully can improve the plan. It can also show where no arrangement fits every preference. If the people involved are available on different weekends, being attentive will not make those dates coincide.
In Everyone has critics, Innocent Mwatsikesimbe treats disagreement as something that continues whatever a person does. He also asks what can be learned from it. Criticism can help a decision become better without becoming a condition that prevents any decision at all.
For the reunion, you might explain the choice plainly: “Lunch lets most people come, and this place is accessible. I know some of you would rather meet in the evening.” The explanation acknowledges the disappointment without pretending you can remove it.
You may be tempted to keep adding promises: another gathering, a separate visit, a longer day. Sometimes that is a generous choice. Sometimes it is a way to avoid ending a conversation with anyone still dissatisfied. Before offering more, consider whether you really want and can manage what you are promising.
The same distinction applies when the decision is more personal. You can hear that a friend misses you and decide to make time together. You do not thereby acquire a duty to accept every invitation. Their wish can matter without becoming the rule for all your evenings.
If you have broken an agreement or overlooked a real need, repair may be appropriate. If someone simply wanted a different answer, kindness may be all you can honestly offer. Those situations become hard to distinguish when every disappointed response feels like proof you have done wrong.
You may still feel uncomfortable after choosing. That feeling cannot tell you, by itself, whether more negotiation would help. Look at what remains unresolved: a practical difficulty you can address, a promise you need to keep, or a preference you cannot satisfy alongside the others.
After you send the reunion details, someone may reply that they still wish it were an evening. You can understand why they would prefer that without reopening the whole arrangement. Their disappointment is real. It does not undo the reasons you chose lunch.
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AI-generated from Innocent Mwatsikesimbe's writing.
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