2020 and 2021 had some steep learning curves in my evaluation of relationships with other individuals and even these days, experience is growing as you never stop learning…
While I was always interested to make even foreign people like me in earlier years, I somehow managed to change this attitude over the time - maybe boosted by COVID? Now, we are facing the second quite devastating year in a row, I often found me confronting myself with the question if I really need to please just everyone on a private and business basis. Wouldn’t be the status of just getting along with fewer, worthy people outside my own family and circle of friends even more important? Some thoughts on that with the wisdom I may have gained over the years, paired with social distancing thanks to COVID-19.
Seeing it in a realistic way, nobody’s perfect. But trying your best to be the person you want to be is everything that should matter. Be true to yourself and to people close to you and always do what you believe in, no matter what others say. I was never the guy with tons of friends, indeed my best three friends live more than 75 kilometers away from me and we know each other for 15 to 20 years. Many people from which I thought they were friends turned their back to me once my private life was focusing on becoming a dad, therefore having less time to party or drink. Looking back (which I rarely try to do!) they were just company in specific parts of my life.
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
(Marcel Proust), French Author
Now, in the coming autumn of 2023, I’ve learned some more lessons. People you could get along with in terms of your job can instantly turn their back to you once you decide to stop working for a specific employee. Or revive the stab-in-the-back-myth. Or suddently turn silent due to restriction made by the employer you’re planning to leave. These experiences sound quite childish and stupid and I never expected job-related relationships to develop these ways but what a fool I have been to underestimate the reaction to one’s own free will. You fought. You oared. You struggled. You encouraged. You helped. You sold. You educated. In the end, you decided to leave the train at a certain station and, sadly, the outcome is nearly the expected one and yet another lesson in life. Ingratitude is the world’s reward, isn’t it?
Finally, people will judge you no matter what you do…so you might as well do what you want. And even more take care and cherish the people around you that are good for you while being sceptical to new “false friends” or backstabbing-folks that seem to flood our society more and more for whatever reason.
