I posted this on Twitter yesterday, because I believe its good advice, but about 1 in 20 or so replies accused me of being selfish or narcissistic, or worst of all an Objectivist.
Im not a big fan of getting into Someone is wrong on the Interent, but I wanted to clarify a little bit in a way that Twitter does not allow.
What I get out of this quote is this: if there is a toxic person in your life who does nothing but bring you down and hurt you, then you should respect yourself enough to remove that person from your life. Life is too short to maintain toxic and negative relationships.
This doesnt mean that you dont make an effort to work on building and maintaining positive, healthy, fulfilling relationships. It doesnt mean that you dont make an effort to be kind and generous and just take take take. It means that if youre constantly making up or something like that with a person, youre not in a healthy, fulfilling relationship. Youre in a toxic relationship, and time you spend maintaining toxic relationships is time wasted that could be spent invested into relationships that bring you joy and make you a better person.
Know and recognize the difference between healthy and toxic relationships, positive and negative people, and respect and love yourself enough to choose the ones that make you happy and inspire you to grow as much as you possibly can. People who drag you down because it makes them feel better about themselves are not worth your time.
Where I think people may have interpreted this as selfish or narcissistic is in the clumsy wording of people or activities serving you. Id take people out of that portion of the advice and apply it directly to the forehead.
Or, you know, just apply it to the activities part and think about where youre investing your time and energy your most precious and limited resource and what youre getting back from it.
Mostly, though, this quote encapsulates advice Ive given my children and applied to my own life: respect yourself enough to leave a romantic or platonic or business relationship that is causing you more harm than good. To borrow a quote from Green Day: You cant go forcing something if its just not right.
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Free yourself from negative people. - Spend time with nice people who are smart, driven and likeminded. Relationships should help you, not hurt you. Surround yourself with people who reflect the person you want to be. Choose friends who you are proud to know, people you admire, who love and respect you - people who will make your day a little brighter simply by being in it. LIfe is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. When you free yourself from negative people, you free yourself to be YOU - and being YOU is the only way to truly live.