Friendships

I've always been the type of person who plays safe when it comes to friendships. I always talk about and emphasize on knowing the difference between a friend and an acquaintance and eliminating toxic people from our lives. I'm a firm believer in friendship detox, where you ruthlessly avoid and cut contact with people who are not good for anything in your life. Over the years, the word "friend" has taken different meanings to me. The older I grew, the more I understood the term  "friend" is actually used in vain. Friendships are relationships. If you are a true friend you will get tired. Why? Because it takes work and effort to be in/maintain a meaningful healthy friendship. My Principle is, friendships are built on the basis of love. Always put your friends first, and they in turn should put you first; ergo, both parties are number one and no one is feeling less important because the union is mutual.

Today, I will talk about what happens when friendships fail and the relationship disintegrates. One of the most devastating experiences that can ever occur to anyone is losing a friend that was once like a sister or brother. Someone you shared your thoughts with and were basically like part of your family. Normally, for whatever reason, it reaches a point where you just drift apart or you get into an argument that causes a big shift in the dynamics of the friendship. It's so heartbreaking because an old friend is now your enemy. Once upon a time, you were like siblings and now you're practically strangers. Ok I now want to share with you the three major lessons I've learned from failed friendships. I haven't had many failed friendships but the very few I've had, including the one that just happened this week, have taught me this:

1. Every single friendship you will have in your life occurs for a reason and for a season. I therefore look back in friendship archives and say; ok we were friends at that time and it was great for however long it lasted. You were meant to be in my life for that season. Whether it’s a month, several months or even years and now your season is over. I then say reminisce on the good before the bad. I look at what role you played in my life at the moment and what lessons you helped me learn. I then conclude your purpose/mission was fulfilled.

2. Forgiveness -When you forgive someone, they lose every power they had over your mind/emotions. You therefore free yourself from their conscience. I won't lie, forgiveness is very hard but what I've learned is we usually harbor a lot of bitterness, anger and resentment towards ourselves AND the friend we're losing. You need to just say, ok this was my best friend and I messed up and so did they so I forgive myself first and then I will extend my forgiveness to them as well. Trust me; it's the most freeing experience ever.

3. When I stop being friends with someone, I Just stop talking to them. No calls, no texts, nothing. In other words, you are just dead to me. However, I’ve learned to be civil. If and when I do see you in public I will acknowledge your presence and wave/hug, ask how you're doing, and go about my way. I choose to act like an adult, because I'm an adult. That person will never be who they were to you. When friendships end, you start seeing that individual differently. It's never the same. Now I want to address the elephant in the room touching itself (me). Everything I've said today is not easy peezy as it sounds. It's a massive, emotionally draining, and heartbreaking process. No, heartbreaks are not only confined to losing a romantic partner. We lose friends for very sickening, weird and silly reasons sometimes but ending particular friendships is one way of living the best version of your life because it frees you from emotional baggage. It will hurt immensely, but life must go on.

Guard your goals

Lately, I've really been looking at successful people and people I admire and just try to figure out what is it about them that makes them successful. When I say 'success', I'm not talking about the traditional matrix which always seems to be about money. I'm talking about  the type of people they are and the fullness of their life. There is one theme that is common among successful people and that is, they selectively choose who to share their goals and accomplishments with. They speak the least. You will never witness them putting themselves on some type of pedestal or stepping on a soap box and preaching to us about what they're about to do. It is so fascinating to me, because I've seen people on Facebook/twitter just brag about their next big project or I meet people in real life who brag about something they haven't even put together. Often  times I come across people who have a vision but no energy. Then there's those with energy but no vision. I rarely meet people with both. They exist but are a rarity. Bragging is akin to masturbating in public. You're entitled to do so, but just remember it's very awkward for people to watch. We're living in a culture where we take comfort in showing off about things that are yet to manifest.

To be fair, I honestly think that people who brag and think they're better than anyone else are not less intelligent, or less talented. It's just that they haven't figured out that not everybody has their best interest at heart. They just get so caught up in the "spreading my dream euphoria" that they forget that not every person wants our dreams to become a reality.I wish they knew that there are some people who when you share a dream/goal with them, they will give you 100 reasons why your goals are unrealistic and will never come true instead of giving you that One supportive, motivational reason to go ahead and pursue your dreams. They want their insecurity to live in us. These people have that crab-in-a barrel mentality. They say "you will never make it" But the minute you "make it" they will turn around and say "I knew you would make it".

  One Lesson that I've really learned on a personal level this year is that alongside virtues such diligence, hard work, confidence & humility; Secrecy and being silent is one of the major keys to achieving something.  We all have goals in life (I hope so, because if you don't then why are you choosing to exist instead of live?). Whether it's to lose weight, or go natural, or get admitted to your dream college...whatever it is, Everyone has that one thing or many things that they want to do. Since we are currently living in an era of social networking, and advanced technology, we've become accustomed to declaring things that we want to achieve before we even go on the journey of making them happen.

The only people that need to know our goals, dreams, aspirations, e.t.c are people that we are accountable to and they could be family members, close friends, mentors, guardians..blah blah. If you are accountable to them, and your relationship with these people is based on love, honesty and integrity, they care about you and want nothing but the absolute best for you, then THOSE are the ONLY people you ought to open up to about your life journey. Think about it, If your success or failure does not directly impact someone, then why are you wasting your breath telling them about your future plans? Nonsensical. The rest of the people DO NOT need to know what we are doing.

I think we need to go on a "exposing ourselves too much" hiatus. Lets embark on the path of  being silent hustlers. Let's perfect our craft first, put in the work and then allow things to manifest. You can't drive a car without fuel. Work on fueling the vessel before you take off. Premature bragging is toxic. The point of this blog is to emphasize that silence and humility are two powerful weapons that a lot of us are not utilizing enough.
Never, ever share you're goals with an average person. for they have sight but no vision. They will drown you in mediocrity.

Thanks for reading.

Peace, Love, joy,

Namaste.