It’s hard to be a person. Especially a person who wants love, which is something most of us do. It can make us spin and turn and coagulate into warped versions of ourselves.
But. Here is a secret.
It's not your job to make everyone like you. This is not only impossible, but trying will make you exhausted and make you feel less like yourself.
Your work in life is to take care of yourself. And to find the people who will let you do that and support you in it.
Your work in life is to support them, too.
There’s this arbitrary value on "niceness," but niceness is often false and painful. It puts us in the position of being dishonest sometimes, of squelching out our own inner voices.
It requires a lot of emotional labor to sublimate your own feelings. And that's exhausting.
Instead of being nice, focus on being true and honest, but compassionate with yourself and others. It is not compassionate to be fake-nice.
Focus, too, on being kind — to yourself and others.
Please know it is OK not to be liked by everyone, and not to like everyone. Figuring out what and who you like actually means you are becoming more yourself.
Promise.
By defining what you like/love and don't, you are self-actualizing and evolving into the real you.
