I Cut Many People Out of My Life and I’ve Never Been Happier

I will start this writing by saying that I’m a paradox. I can be a very social person with certain people yet most times I love to spend time with myself, curl on blanket with my cat and spend the entire day writing or reading something. As I grow up, life demands me to interact with more different people, and not infrequently, with people that I cannot get along well with. There were many times I woke up in the morning, brushed my hair as I put on fake smile in the mirror because I knew I will meet some people today that have the ability to make me annoyingly furious.

Years ago when I was younger than now, I sacrificed myself a lot. I went out to the coffee shop with ‘friends’ that I didn’t even speak often with, just for the sake of maintaining good and healthy relation with them, and I ended up counting every second passed, telling stories without meanings, sipping drink that I don’t like just because they convinced me to try it, and wishing that I can teleport right to my room on that exact moment. I sacrificed my time, money, energy, and feelings for people that unfortunately were not worth it. Until now I don’t know whether to laugh or cry remembering those moments when I spent my saving money to watch movies I don’t like, buy clothes that I knew I would never wear, just because my other ‘friends’ did the same and I was too afraid to lose friends. Quantity over quality, classic.

Things got worse when fake smile turned into the disability to say no. I often found myself trapped in a situation where they asked me for help and I made one of the biggest mistakes in my life, put other people first and ignore myself. And the worst of all? Felt angry to myself for being angry to other people that did me wrong. My life came crashing down when I entered the early adult stage – the stage where I desperately trying to find myself when at the same time my real self got dragged away in order to adjust with mainstream society.

I’m not an expert of youth life behavior and I can’t say if that ‘lost’ feeling you feel as you grow up is compulsory if you want to be a complete adult, but one thing for sure, that feeling destroyed me. I spent months trying to figure myself out while at the same time still making same old mistakes. Until one day it just clicks. There was light at the end of the tunnel and I just realized what was important and what wasn’t. I learned to care less about what other people think of me and focused more about what I think of myself. And then I remembered all those people that made my life to be such a mess and that made me think things would never recover.

From that moment on, I took baby steps to really apply the motto ‘forgive but not forget’ and live my life just the way I needed it to be. I started to chose watching my favourite TV shows over going to club on Saturday night, stop pretending I like chai latte even though people are obsessed with it, splurge my money to buy geeky novels and say no to the girl offering me latest issue of Nylon. All just because I want it to. Even so, I didn’t become completely ignorant. It sounds cliché, but sometimes it’s me, not them.

I can briefly say that, yes, I do cut a lot of people out of my life – some of them even are my family members. And when I’m not saying that it’s completely right to do so, here I just want us all to be a little selfish when it comes to our own happiness. After all, we’re not here to please other people and pretending that we like Star Wars despite all those confusing plots certainly doesn’t help. When it comes to cutting some people out of my life for good, I do such things. First, I evaluate my relationship with them. Do they respect me? Do I respect myself when I’m with them? Do I enjoy spending time with them? What impacts do they give in my life and what don’t? Do they force me to eat peanut butter when I feel like Nutella? If so, then I proceed to second harder decision – letting them out of my life for good. It hurts, especially if you rip them like a Band-Aid on your skin. But I believe in the power of time and how they heal everything and once you learn how to be happy, you won’t tolerate being around people who make you feel anything less.

As for now on, I just stick with what I have been doing and start to do things for myself, not for other people. One thing for sure that I’m currently learning is that as you getting older, you will no longer have energy for meaningless friendships, forced interactions, and unnecessary conversations. Just do what you feel is right and makes you happy, maintain and surround yourself with people that you love and love you back, and the rest will fit perfectly into places.