Less People, Less Problems

When I was little my mother used to say that she was going "soul searching" when she was in deep thought or pondering a major life choice. I kept thinking.....Soul Searching? Where did it go? How do you loose it to begin with? How do you identify it when you've found it again? I later learned that it was just a metaphor for doing some deep thinking. I've recently discovered that I've spent the majority of my life trying to impress people that don't deserve to seconds of my time.

Christmas cards to people who don't care, affection to folks who never return it, hero worship to people I've put on pedestals but would never give me the time of day, kiss the ass of people who I wanted to be friends with because I too wanted to be cool like them.....but never realizing I would never EVER be good enough for them. They decided a long time ago that I would not be in their inner circle and no matter how hard I tried I would never make it.

So I deleted 100 extra friends on facebook. Then another 100 more when I realized I was just collecting 'friends' on facebook and some of them I had never even met in real life. Then another 75 when I realized that even more were people I'd never meet, talk to, travel to, or invite to a special event like a wedding, baptismal, funeral or anniversary party. How long had I been off my path that I surrounded myself with nobody's and wondered why I never felt loved? I pushed away folks that I did love, because I was too worried about the folks that didn't love me.

Seriously what the fuck? So I deleted another 25. I started to feel more free, positive energy, connecting with people who actually matter. How long did I burry my head in the sand? Why did I do this to begin with? Oh yeah.....I'm a people pleaser. I have begged my whole life to be apart of the cool crowd never realizing that no matter what I did I was never going to sit with the cool kids at the lunch table.

I had connected myself to people who just wanted my time at their events, money for their charities, advice when they needed it, and my endless admiration of them to build them up. Never asking myself, what is in it for me? I've come to the conclusion that I need to make my circle smaller. Therefor less people, and less problems. Its painful on one hand because it could result in hurt feelings but .....I tend to think: they'd do the same thing in a blink of an eye. Self care is not selfish.

-SVJ