The feeling you get when a person you can’t stand posts a fake Instagram picture or Snapchat story and your stomach churns is likely sheer agitation. It can hit you even in the most sublte ways, like just hearing their voice or hearing another friend mention them. Unfortunately, we can’t escape that feeling all the time, but we do have control over the amount of power we give those people.
College is an interesting place because it is essentially a huge mess of semi-adults who are all at different stages of life and maturity levels. This means it is difficult communicating or getting along with different friends and people at college.
The essential point is that, while we can easily become frustrated at other people’s immaturity, if we acknowledge that college is a learning process and have patience, we can bring peace to ourselves as a result.
The same is true in life. We will always come across people who bother us or people who are bothered by us, but if we constantly give in to the thoughts and emotions of others, we
neglect the needs of our own selves. We think that we can influence others’ opinions of us, and we people-pleasers will always live in a constant state of flux, changing how we act to improve how others view us.
The consequence of this is sheer exhaustion.The fact of the matter is this: at some point, we have to let the haters hate and move on.
There will always be someone who bothers you or is bothered by you, and that’s okay. If we try to keep everyone happy all the time we will burn out. In the same way, when someone is irritating you or causing you frustration, it will provide so much more payoff to just let it roll off your back. There are some people who we can never please, and there are some people who will never please us. Recognizing that and refusing to let it bother us is crucial to the happiness we experience in our lives.
I’m thoroughly convinced that one of the major keys of life is to be able to shut off our minds to the influence and thoughts of others at times. While it is beneficial to care for others and to be empathetic, there should be a balance between caring for others and letting their emotions control us. When we can allow the hate and negative comments from people in our lives to roll off our backs, we can focus on being happy on our own and the pressure to be someone we aren’t will vanish.
The key is to treat all others with kindness and refuse to become agitated and annoyed at the immaturity of others. And maybe, just maybe, by treating those people with unlimited kindness and refusing to be bothered, we will inspire others to do the same.
I leave you with a famous quote by Martin Luther King Jr.: “I decided to stick with love. Hate is too great of a burden to bear.”
Relpy to Bailey at
