I hate confrontation. I hate causing issues. I hate being the one to bring up a difficult subject. Unfortunately, sometimes in life we're called to make difficult choices and have challenging conversations. If you're anything like me, you dread having to be the one to initiate some sort of confrontation or disappointment, but you can't always hold everything in.

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You see, I'm a pretty basic people-pleaser. I want people to be happy, and I want to be liked (don't we all?). It's not necessarily something I'm proud of. But I'll admit: I have some difficult friendships. It's so hard to do as I'm told and put other people first, especially when they do something to hurt me. However, as life goes on, these things are bound to happen, and I seem to rarely know how to deal with them properly. Unfortunately for me, I hate making people unhappy; I feel like it's a reflection of how they see me. So I often choose to be unhappy myself in order to prevent that fate from befalling them.

There are times when something is burdening me – perhaps it's something hurtful a friend told me, or an unspoken tension that I've noticed. In those times, I have to make a choice: do I address the concern and risk causing an unnecessary issue, or do I swallow the feelings and keep it to myself? Unfortunately, I often choose the latter. I would rather suffer in silence than burden someone else with my issues, or accidentally start a fight. After all, one person hurting is better than two...right?

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Well, no, not really. When you bottle up all your issues, insecurities, and problems you have with others, it slowly eats away at your spirit. Sometimes you just need to get it all out so that maybe you can resolve some of those problems.

If only it were that easy. I can't tell you how many times I've been hurt by someone, but rather than confronting them about it, I've kept it to myself and let it fester, gradually letting it tear me down. I was afraid that if I talked to them about what they did to hurt me they would just get mad, and so instead of starting a fight I chose to suffer alone. I wish I had the courage to always stand up for myself and stop fearing that I'll "lose" someone by addressing some serious problems. Because the truth is, if they get fed up after one confrontation and want to peace-out, they weren't worth having around in the first place.

I've had friends who would get so upset and defensive when I tried to talk about something questionable that they said or did. It felt terrible to be the cause of such a reaction. I regretted even mentioning it and from then on chose to keep every concern inside. It was those situations that made me so afraid to speak my mind. I'm deeply disappointed that I let a few bad encounters instill a fear in me that has hindered my ability to stand up for my feelings. Thankfully, however, I've since seen that I wasn't always the problem in those situations; toxic people were. Those kinds of people are nearly impossible to please, so it's best to not fret over unsuccessfully trying to make them happy.

For your own sanity, you have to accept that you can't always please everyone. And sometimes, you may have to risk hurting someone's feelings. Don't be like me and worry about the worst-case scenario. Bringing up something that bothered you may not cause some big, disastrous, friendship-ruining fight. In fact, it may just bring about a healthy discussion about how you can improve your relationship. You'll never know unless you give it a shot. Or you can choose to continue suffering in silence, never letting your friends know how they can help you.

As Ricky Nelson said in his song "Garden Party," "You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself."