In the month and twenty-five days that I have not written on this blog, I have realised something. People are choices. We don’t have to be around someone in the same way we don’t have to do something that makes us uneasy. But unlike the automatic simplicity of being able to identify the foods you hate, it’s not as clear cut when deciding the people that just aren’t good for you.
It’s a difficult dilemma to wrestle, especially when you want to be around someone. When that person makes you so happy that you feel like the universe somehow configured itself to revolve around you both, forgetting how they’ve made you feel in the past is a feat that inevitably takes its own course. You can’t help but forgive them because you weigh up what they’ve said or done to make you feel like crap, and the things about them that make you ecstatic – and of course, the latter is always a stronger, more positive reinforcement to make. But is this always the right thing to do?
Short answer: no. People are subject to change every minute of the day, which is why I believe in the mantra, “Forgive, but don’t forget.” I read somewhere once that that saying is redundant, because ‘if you don’t forget, then are you really forgiving?’ I think this is a naïve way to live, and one that is only bound to set you up for betrayal or disappointment later on. You can’t treat the past like it never happened; this is the very definition of ignorance. To illustrate, take a quote from Breaking Bad’s incredible villain Gus, who says, “Never make the same mistake twice.” Forgiving someone means that you are willing to put something behind you and move on, but not necessarily that you will forget how you felt at that time. The next time that person shows the warning signs of doing something that offended you in the past, it is nothing but emotional self-defence to remind yourself of your former feelings. Mistakes are worthless if we don’t learn from them, and that is a crucial factor in determining if someone in your life is toxic.
Realising that someone isn’t good for you is definitely the hardest step in the equation, but once it happens, you are truly halfway there. This epiphany may come straight away, or it may take time. If you don’t know, though, I think paying close attention to everything they say (and more importantly, everything they do) is a good way to get there. Does everything they do sit well with you? Past the moral halo they seem to emit, is there something more?
I liked a boy. He seemed like everything I’d ever wanted at first – honest, trusting, down-to-earth, friendly, confident. In the beginning, I loved everything about him. As time went on, however, I realised more of his faults. Spiteful. Gossipy. Judgemental. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to have faults (duh, how else could we be human?) – but there comes a point when you have to weigh up the negatives against the positives, and see whether it’s worth working through the former to reach the latter. In the end, I decided that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t work through the bad qualities to uncover the good. So I let him go.
It gets easier after this awareness comes about. Really, it’s just about directing your attention to other facets of your life that give you a similar amount of satisfaction and elation as this person once did. Focus on hobbies, take up new ones. Understand that everything has a reason, and that, perhaps in an emotionally macabre sort of way, it was all an important lesson, a checkpoint you have passed. And I promise, the feeling of freedom – of no longer being bogged down in your mind, day in and day out – is far more promising and rewarding than being around this person ever was. ✦
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