This has been my number one question while I’ve surfed from one friendship to another. The plaguing of this one question in my mind has not been easy, I tell you. The only answer I’ve gotten was… what I wanted for and from my ships, likewise connections. My only issue is that I’ve never understood people’s desire for their ship.
For example: In my ships, I would like a flow of honesty, understanding, genuine speech, and different perceptions. I need to feel comfortable enough to call after 4 months and not feel the distance. I need to be able to vibe out with you on a higher level without feeling like I’m a teacher sometimes. I would like to be a student of yours and vice versa. We must be able to communicate on the same level. We must be able to push each other to higher and bigger things. If we’re going to be in each other’s lives, let’s make it great.
Over the years, my friendships were far from that. I’ve had people come and go, friendships die; I’ve had the awkward friendships and the plain old “using friendships.” In addition, what they’ve all had in common was me pushing for something they did not want. On the other hand, I’m giving my all and receiving half in return.
In return for my “high standards” for my friendships, I’ve had people fear me, think I’m a snob, and the best one yet—like me because… I’ve realized that my standards were high to.. them because they’ve never experienced something similar to what I was offering. So to them it was too much. I’ve come to the realization that during all the bouncing from one ship to another, I must never feel defeated because another person doesn’t recognize what I have to offer.
The craziest thing someone said to me was (dialect) “I think you were thinking too deep about this friendship though.” (dialect) Shocking right? To hear something like that made me speechless, to say the least. I was so astonished by the comment that it made me think: why be in another person’s life if you’re not ready for the journey and responsibility that comes with that? Or why be in their life knowing you were in it because you wanted something from them—but at the same time, you dislike that person? People don’t realize that the energy you transmit, whether good or bad, comes right back to you. People call it karma; I call it energy because we’re surrounded by energy. Every single atom and cell is made of energy. Thus, whatever your energy is concentrated on the strongest is what you’ll receive. Anyway, I digressed. The bottom line is: if you’re not true with your emotions, how do you expect to receive genuine emotion in return? The same way you want another person to be genuine in your life, the same applies for another being.
During all of those transitions, I started questioning myself:
“Why are you so desperate for a friendship?
Why are you afraid of being alone?
So what if you don’t have friendships?
Are they even meeting the criteria of the friendship you are aiming for?
Are they even interested in the friendship?”
I’ve run from answering these pressing questions because I knew the truth—and a painful truth it was—and that was they weren’t as interesting as I am.
When I sat down to really answer those questions, it broke my heart, to simply put it. Realizing that was when I knew I needed to heal and fill the void, rather than trying to fill that space with a ship or ships from the wrong people. Meanwhile, I’m over here being forgiving, understanding, committed, and totally... considerate toward them and their actions, only for it to still end in the same result—a sunken ship.
I’ve even gone as far as studying the environment that I’ve resided in, which made me come to the realization that the people here (some) aren’t familiar with what I call a “friendship.” Which made me understand the people I allowed into my life on a whole other level.
Let me elaborate: I’ve noticed that people’s friendships here are filled with an “I’m going to use you until I get what I want” mentality. They’ve all used each other, talked about their so-called friends’ private business with another friend, and some even went as far as sleeping with their friend’s partner. After witnessing all the dishonesty within those ships, I began to understand why people bear the skepticism toward the word “friendship” and not toward me.
I’ve noticed that over a period of time, people never truly look at another person; they look at them through the lens of a title or category they’ve placed them in while they’re in that friendship. Subsequently, from that title, people would determine how to treat that person—not realizing they’ve placed an innocent being within that “betrayal category” because of a past experience.
During this discovery, I found it very unfair (speaking from the “innocent person” point of view) to start any connection with someone while still harboring old feelings from unresolved “ships” that may have left a rotten taste in your mouth. Yeah, I understand the process of the pain you’ve endured, because I myself have endured it, but living your life from a defensive standpoint will only leave you lonely and stagnant. Rather than sitting in a negative emotion and claiming the “Do for Do” attitude, we should try to forgive. Not forgive for them, but forgive for us—and for the people we may unconsciously hurt because of that unhealed pain.
For the people who are always in a defensive mindset, let me bring something to your attention: have you considered the possibility that maybe… people don’t fancy being around someone with whom they constantly have to choose their words wisely, for fear of being misunderstood—which leads to them avoiding you because they don’t have the mental capacity to deal with the negativity? Or the constant fighting to be heard in a simple conversation with you, thus making them feel like a parent? Or having to be in a ship with someone who is on 100 all the time, which calls for a lot of patience, a patience that eventually runs out? Sooner or later, that person will not want to be around you because of the effort they’ve had to muster just to be in your presence.
Considering all of those factors, I still had to ask myself, “How can I ask something of them when they’ve never received it or don’t know how to recognize it?” Which led me to look at it from another point of view.
Let’s look at it another way:
Of late, I’ve noticed people making this comparison between a relationship and a marriage, stating that the two are completely different things on the same path, which is to have a mate. So I wanted to know how true this statement was, which got me into “detective mode.” So I went into extensive research and questioning (from some of my married and relationship friends), and this is what I’ve gathered.
Relationship: people work for the marriage. Yeah, yeah, I know some will deny this—especially the ladies—but let’s be real… whenever we enter into a ship or marriage, it’s always the end game. It’s never far from our thoughts because of what society has taught us. Moving along, while in the ship, some of us put on a persona: we’re more compliant, understanding, forgiving, and have hardly any “demands.” They’re comfortable with each other, the high of the partnership is calm and beautiful. We have our “get along” caps on because both parties don’t want to lose. The infatuation high is on 100, thus giving way to all bad habits, and the “tread lightly” phase is set and ready—therefore adding up to both parties not expressing their true nature at the beginning of the relationship because of fear. The fear of failure and the fear of being left, once again. Majority of the time, people live their lives from the fear of past experiences and never give themselves a chance to experience the new.
Marriage: starts with the burden the world has created for that word to be. The standards are higher, and the divorces are more expensive. The ladies have plans, and the men just want to know, “What changed?” and the ladies are thinking, “Why hasn’t he grown up yet?” But that’s a topic for another day. I’ve really come to the realization that words—and people’s experiences with those words—do have a hold on how they perceive and live their lives. Due to this, the word “marriage” makes people change, and with that change, the responsibilities people place on marriage exist on a whole other spectrum.
Those views come from the “what I want” factor and the “what we must accomplish” factor. Instead of, “I’m happy my mate and I have come so far together, and whatever our lives hold, we’ll be alright.” The pressure on accomplishments, and what they think a married couple should be or should achieve, may be what is leading their ship instead of what they actually want together without outside influences. As a matter of fact, are there ever not outside influences in anything we’ve done in life? That’s what we should question and answer before we enter into anything with another being. Which leads me to my bonus example: children…
Children: It’s the same thing with having kids. Children have a title of their own as well. That title is filled with personal wants and achievements for and from that child based on the parents’ experiences—but never what the child wants. Why? Because some big idiot said, “Children don’t know what they want.” But that’s another story to blog about as well. Moving along, the “I wants” are a lot when it comes to parenting: “I want my kids to be a certain way; they must do this and that by a certain age; why doesn’t my kid do what Efua is doing?” etc. The burden for your child to be “better than, accomplish more, or never experience the life I did” takes so much away from the parent actually seeing who that child really is, which in turn doesn’t allow the child to blossom into their full being during their course of being here. Their individual personalities were pushed down to accommodate the parents’ “wants and needs.” BUT let me not condemn the parents only—society has its hands in this as well. So as you can see, we need a different blog for this story because there is so much to be said about this specific topic.
Another example is work.
Work: the mentality is… “I must get promoted before this year and before this person.” Everything is experienced and done through the eyes of competition. So in this environment, there will always be tension and division. The trust is completely out the window because it’s an “every man for himself” arena. Acting that way, they haven’t realized that they’ve forgotten the endgame, which is to provide for their families and live a happy life. People have been taking everything so seriously and lost the value of their priorities in the first place.
With the examples I’ve provided, we can see how people have been regarding a lot of the titles and words in their lives without realizing the effect they have. People’s personal feelings and experiences impact their reactions to those words, and the emotional reaction that word may trigger is how they respond. Therefore, we should clean our negative triggers from our words, then start trying to understand a person from that person’s word or perspective instead of our own. We don’t realize that the negative emotion placed behind those words becomes a burden. We live by the heaviness of a word instead of how we want that word to be for us.
Life is supposed to be experienced, not taken so seriously. I’ve realized we’ve lost that—or weren’t taught that. We’ve all missed the whole experience and made it draining. Humans truly take their life lessons too seriously and miss the whole teaching. The things that you’re experiencing aren’t supposed to be held onto; they’re supposed to be learned from and moved on from. When you notice that you seem to be going in a continuous circle, it means you’ve missed the whole lesson, and life is doing a whole rewind on you until you’ve learned from it.
Wait… and again, I feel like I’ve digressed way too much, thus back to “friendship.”
I’ve always loved this quote from Maya Angelou: “If someone shows you who they are, believe them.” This quote has been ringing true to me lately more than it usually has. What I’ve learned from it was to never make an excuse for a person’s behavior and to always observe. And over the years, that’s all I’ve been doing—trying to understand the behavior of humans to the point that things hardly shock me… my responses are always so nonchalant, and to me, that’s sad. Why should I always have to be so open and understanding, but it’s never the same with me? You would think from all the betrayals, I would lock my emotions down, but I chose not to (maybe someone should start thinking that way).
Here’s why I didn’t feel the need to lock my emotions down. Locking my emotions down, for me, means hurting another person, and that I was AND will not be a part of. To knowingly inflict the same pain that was caused to me would start a cycle, and I was too alert to activate that cycle. That’s why I’m careful not to mirror my emotions in a way that may lead to passing that painful emotion onto another person. Here is how I overcame that: before acting from that negative emotion, I would place myself in their shoes, thinking along the lines of, “It’s not their fault; therefore, they don’t deserve an aggressive reaction.” With that mindfulness, I’ve learned to forgive and heal for a better me—and one less victim. When you’ve hurt another being, that pain is always tucked away somewhere in a person’s mind or heart.
Someone said, “It’s not what you did, it’s how you made me feel.” Remember, every time they see you, it’s always a darkness they feel or a dark memory being awakened. Knowing that allowed me to never put myself in a negative place to engrave bad energy into another, because my thoughts always lead me to this one question: “What if they do that to another?” And that thought stops me from starting a cycle. The endless “I hurt a person, they hurt a person” train—I was not going to board. And maybe, just maybe, along the way someone like me comes up who thinks the same, and may stop that cycle—but by then the damage would’ve already been done. Furthermore, who knows how many people between that cycle would have been hurt.
For that reason, in my journey, if I can stop that and just share love and teach love, I’m satisfied with that. Because knowing that about twenty people may have passed on some great energy—energy I’ve given—knowing that is all I live and ask for. I’m here to teach better and make a person feel better. By doing this, I feel like my heart is complete.
In conclusion, we must consider that people like me, who are living this path, can experience pain at times. Having to live an empathic life where you always have to deal with people’s darkness and pain, knowing that whatever they say or do to you means you cannot react with the same thinking or energy, is the hardest emotion to control. Some days, I wish our people could heal instantly so that we all could live a completely peaceful life. I’ve heard people say if the earth gets peaceful, it will be boring—I call bullshit… the earth being peaceful would be beautiful, calm, and easier. The people who say that must only know darkness, and those are the people who haven’t had the experience of the bright side.
With all that being said, take my advice and be a good friend, speak up, and don’t lead people on. Maybe, just maybe… that person actually likes you and truly considers you a confidante.
Thank you for reading my blog, and remember: be awesome and love life.
Life is simple, people. May we choose compassion even when it’s not returned.
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