Deserving

I have honestly been avoiding talking about this topic because I am not exactly sure how to approach it properly.  But I am going to give it a shot.  More often than not you are surrounded by people.  Especially if you are married, or living with others.  Now days, even when you are alone, you are still communicating, texting, or networking online.  Without realizing it, others have an influence on the way we go about living, the mentalities we keep, and the attitude we expend.  This constant interaction with others is honestly a beautiful thing, but we have to take an honest and hard look at the people we are allowing to influence our life.  I need to emphasize here that I don't mean judgement, but careful analysis.  There is a difference.  Judgement is critiquing someone, just to critique someone, often in a critical way.  What I am referring to is analyzing whether or not their lifestyle is one that is beneficially duplicatable in your own life.

The reason for this careful analysis is simple.  The people around you will affect you.  I have written a blog post about that already.  The issue I am more closely referring to is cutting out someone who is hurting you.  This is not something to take lightly and the only reason to do this is if someone is causing harm to you.  Often when we don't value ourselves, we end up around people that similarly don't value themselves either.  Unfortunately, hurt people hurt people.  What this means is that as you develop your self-esteem, there are people who will hold you back from progressing further.  Not intentionally.  These are not bad people.  They are just not willing to move forward.  Ideally, if you approached them about progressing forward, they would join you. But in reality, not everyone will, because growth is hard and not an overpopulated road.  It is then that you have to make the difficult decision for yourself.  

One way that works really well is offend the person and they will disappear quickly.  That's a joke.  Honestly, I have had to cut out very few people from my life, because I moved for my husband's job across the United States and away from everyone that I knew.  This is one of the best things that could have happened (other than being so far from family), because it gave me an opportunity to be who I wanted and find people that wanted the same things.  For you, it may not be so easy.  But, if you really want to move forward with your life, the people that are holding you down may have to be released.  This is a painful process, but necessary if you want to be and do your best.  I know it may seem clique, but you deserve to be brought up and encouraged.  Being in someone's life is a privilege, not a right.  If they are hurting you or holding you back, they aren't earning that privilege.  Be strong enough in yourself to know what you deserve.  You deserve the best.

-"Do not be deceived: 'Bad company ruins good morals." -1 Corinthians 15:33