Don’t waste your time on people that don’t respect or value yours. Know your worth—you matter, so if someone claims not to have time for you, believe them, readjust your perspective on where you rank in their life, and redirect your energy towards people that—through their actions—demonstrate that you actually matter to them.
It’s so simple, yet complicated. Maybe this means allowing certain people to disappear into your past where they belong. Maybe this means a breakup. Maybe this means the disconnection of a network you once thought advantageous. Maybe this means demoting someone from “friend” to “passing acquaintance.”
Whatever it means, understand that realizing your self-worth and living your life in a way that refuses to settle for anything less than how you ought to be treated doesn’t always mean you’re selfish. Because after all, if you don’t love yourself, how will anyone else follow your example by loving you?
Set a benchmark for your social interactions and don’t be afraid to go it alone if there’s no one around that reasonably knows how to treat you with respect, dignity, and kindness. Surround yourself with capable people, and treat others likewise. Your happiness will thank you.
Sometimes allowing those doomed to fade into the vapors of your past is the most difficult thing; a piece of you, perhaps, holds on to the distant hope that whatever goodness you once thought lived in that person will overcome the evil that drove you away in the first place.
Maybe it’s because the feeling of loss—be it social, spiritual, psychological, or even sexual—is something that deeply affects you. You never want that feeling to return because of the despair that inevitably accompanies it. You know that this too shall pass, but your heart disagrees.
It’s possible that the fear of the unknown future is what causes one to gravitate back to that which they know, rather than that which they don’t. It can be understood at times, but that doesn’t make it easier. As a heart, you love, but when it’s unrequited, what do you do?
Do you hold on to the hope that if you just remain patient and consistent, the fires of affection will someday burn in his, her, or their soul, perhaps for the first time? Do you feel in your heart that you have fought the good fight, finished a righteous race of love, and seek only that emotional victory?
Sometimes even the best runners don’t finish ahead of the pack, but those that beat navigate the track, be it through hook or crook. Even the judges themselves have their own criteria for whom deserves the golden medal of victory. Triumph is inevitable, but not today.
This is a difficult feeling to have, sometimes. That reality that constantly reminds itself that your day might not be today. How then can one remain patient enough while so many others have reaped the benefits of your labor? How long must your back crack open under a harsh sun?
The others have long since been invited inside, yet there you are, toiling away at a soil that, despite your hard work, tender loving care, and conscious management, refuses to yield fruit for your emotional harvest. It doesn’t seem very fair at all, does it? But that’s just the way it is sometimes.
Perhaps that’s why they call it the blues.
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