22nd November 2024
Continuing with the theme of my yesterday’s blog, I wanted to introspect on how I wanted to live my life.
I have spent many years of my life wanting to be liked:
I said yes to everything.
I avoided hard conversations.
I never established boundaries.
I let things slide.
I was easygoing, Then one day, I realized that the hidden cost of wanting to be liked was far too high.
I may have been liked, but at what cost to the rest of my life?
The painful truth is that a lot of people will like you when you’re easygoing, when you say yes to them (and no to yourself), when you let everything slide.
But your real ones will love you when you do the opposite of those things:
When you say no.
When you embrace boundaries.
When you have the hard conversation.
When you stand up for yourself.
The goal is to be loved, not liked,
always remember that.
It recently got reinforced, when one evening, I was out on a walk with my niece’s young son and an old man approached me on the sidewalk.
He flashed a knowing smile and said, “I remember standing here with my newborn daughter. Well, she’s 45 now, It goes by fast—cherish it.”
It hit me hard.
Time is your ultimate currency—it’s all you have and you can never get it back.
You are creating your dash every single day, you are living the dash.
That one, single, tiny dash is all you get.
What do you want your dash to say about who you were, about how you lived, about how you loved?
What are you doing with your one wild, crazy dash?
Make the dash count. Don’t work to be liked, live life to be loved & stay blessed forever.