Be You Always

If you desire to make a difference in the world, you must be different from the world.

Elaine S. Dalton

Lately, I have been doing a lot of reflecting. About the past, present, and even the future. And the biggest takeaway I have gathered is to never let someone else make you into a version of yourself that you don’t respect.

There is beauty in remaining authentic when it feels like it is not being appreciated; that our kindness is not being met by the hands of another. It isn’t easy to be let down by someone else’s actions, especially when we had all these expectations. It has just enough pressure to add a few puncture wounds to the heart.

But only if we allow it to.

I’m struggling because my trying to get to know another person is not being reciprocated. And at first, it hurt. It stung. I questioned was I was doing or wasn’t doing, but my curiosity came to this conclusion: not everyone is willing to put in the same level of effort into a relationship that you are. Not everyone is going to want to have a connection with you because they, for whatever reason, do not find it beneficial to them.

It took me a while to accept because I had all these assumptions that I hoped would be met and, unfortunately, they weren’t. It took a mix of sadness and anger and frustration to tell myself that it’s time to let go. Time to stop trying.

Because doing so will only be greeted with disappointment.

I am a people pleaser and I have been my entire life. I put others’ needs before my own because I believe that if I do, they’ll like me better or I’ll fit into their circle. I ignore my own happiness because it isn’t going to make someone want to be my friend.

But begging isn’t going to do that either.

Sometimes, we need to feel defeated in order to remind ourselves that we deserve more. We deserve people who are going to care about us the way we do about them and we deserve people who want to see beneath our hardened layers.

Let me tell you, you are not any less amazing just because someone else decides to turn a blind eye to it. And you are not any less special just because a person does not feel like they need you in their life.

Because, at the end of the day, people cannot lose something they never had.

And the same goes for you too.

There will be others out there who want to be in your orbit, so there’s no need to keep focusing on those who do not. Because what I have also learned is that it has nothing to do with who you are, but everything to do with how they are.

It is simple to focus on the bad in life instead of the good. It’s natural. Hell, I do it all the time. But if we can retrain our mind to count our blessings more than we do our misfortunes, then I truly believe we’ll be happier because of it.

Do not change your morals to fit those of another. Could I be unfriendly all because someone else is? You’re damn right I could. But that’s not who I am and that’s not what I feel, in my heart, is the right thing to do.

Be yourself, no matter what people think. God made you the way you are for a reason. Besides, an original is worth more than a copy.

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