Not Everyone Will Like Us
As much as it is a pleasant experience to be
liked, the reality is not everyone will. Yet, how much time and energy do we
sometimes waste, trying to get someone to like us? We adjust our personalities
to suite others’ wants and needs, we laugh at things we don’t think are funny,
we say what we think others want to hear, we are overly helpful to a fault and
often at our own expense.
When we come to depend on the approval of others
and measure our self-worth by their judgments, we lose our way. We lose
ourselves.
Like tends to attract like and usually if
someone doesn’t like us, it’s because they aren’t like us. They operate with a
different energy, have distinctly different opinions or perspectives and see
the world through a much different filter. What is important to us, may not be
for them and what makes sense to them, may seem ludicrous to us.
This does not mean there is anything wrong with
us or with them, it’s just that we are attracted to different things and
people, and no matter what we do, they may still not like us. We could stand on
our head, twiddle our thumbs and spit nickels and they still would not be
attracted to us.
The same is true in reverse. We also may not
like everyone we meet. I’m sure we can all think of someone we just don’t “fit
in” with, or someone who rubs us the wrong way, annoys and frustrates us. We
find ourselves judging and criticizing them as we try to change them to our
likeness, hoping they will be more like the person we know they “should” be.
Likewise, when we allow our disapproval of them and the way they think and act
affect us in negative ways, we lose our own way. We lose ourselves.
However, if we allow others to think as they do
about us without taking it personally, then we give them freedom to be
themselves and we reclaim it for ourselves as well. When we accept others as
they are without making them wrong and accept the differences, then we too, are
set free to be whom we are.
Rather than try to shape ourselves into someone
we aren’t or try to force someone to change to our liking, through acceptance,
we can each move along our life’s path free to be ourselves and free to attract
those who do vibrate with the same energy.
If we do this well, we will not only learn one
of life’s greatest lessons, we will be a gift of love to all we meet.
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