Knowledge Is Power: Expect People Not To Like You.

There are people in the world.

Right now.

At this very moment.

Who you haven't met yet.

Who you are going to meet.

Who aren't going to like you.

And some of them will even, by choice, treat you like complete doodoo.


Yep.  So accept it now.  Because guess what.  It is like that for absolutely everybody.


We have heard this phrase a quadrabajillion times: "There is no such thing as the perfect person."
It's repeated a lot because it's completely factual.  However, repetition always does one of two things.  Numero uno: It adds emphasis.  Numero dos: It takes away emphasis.  And in this case, I think dos is the winner.  We lose the essence of what people are trying to tell us because this phrase has been used so many times without elaboration.

I'm here to tell ya that there isn't one person in the world that everybody likes.  I don't even think most people are liked by most people, unless they did something super heroic and helpful to the world.  Or they're a really witty, adorable child.  And even then a lot of people don't like children.  And even then, a majority of the people who do like them, still get super annoyed by them.

You know what, there are people who don't even like PUPPIES.

So don't be greedy and expect that everybody is going to like YOU.  Get over it that some person at the store today was frustrated with you for no apparent reason.  That's life.  The sooner you start expecting that not everyone is going to like you, the less it will bother you when someone comes along and is rude to you.  Surprises are experiences that tend to traumatize us and lead us to question ourselves--you can use them as beneficial learning experiences.  Expectations tend to fly in one ear and out the other.  If you expect people will sometimes not like you, guess what?  It doesn't hurt as much when you find out that they don't.


But even then...

I would say that most of the time...

The way people treat you,

The way people look at you,

The way people act when you are around,

No matter what they may tell you--

Has absolutely nothing to do with you.


Because everybody has bad days.  Everyone sleeps poorly at times.  Everyone goes through something that makes them miserable and unhelpful toward the people around them, even if it is just temporarily.  And you WILL catch someone at a bad moment.  Because there's simply too many of us for it not to happen.  And I'm sure someone has caught you at a bad moment too.  We all have made each other feel bad.  It's even more of a reason for us to try to figure out how to treat each other the right way, which is kindly.

Now what I do not want, is for someone to use this as an excuse for their bad behavior.  You may have made some mistakes that made someone pretty unhappy with you.  OWN IT.  You are strong enough to handle it.  Just do it.  That's how you grow up.  I'm mostly referring here, to complete strangers.  To people who are around you who you barely know or don't know on a personal enough basis for them to have anything against you.


Children and adult children (regardless of whether you're 70 or 7), will often pick on others to boost their own egos.  And they'll cruelly pick out your biggest insecurities and inflate them, make them out to be so horrible, so you can feel like a horrible person, while they get to feel important because of it.  Or so they think.

Guess who the sad one is here?  Not you.  Because you know better.

They are sad because they have no higher personality trait to redeem themselves with.  No wit, no interesting thoughts, no current value, such as being a good person, that would keep them from being so silly.  And not only that.  People who make others sad on purpose, tend to be pretty sad themselves.  They don't know what else to do with themselves, other than to pick at others, to boost their own self-esteem.  Isn't that sad?  Isn't it wonderful to boost your own self-esteem instead by helping others and making them feel good?  When people are stuck deep in a mental hole, they forget about what is really important.  I truly believe that some of these people are so joyless when they do this, that they forget what it means to be happy, and so they walk around making everyone else miserable because it is all they know.  Then there are the others, who are not intelligent enough to know that the most valuable companions will adore them for them, not because they stepped on other people in order to look good.  They will squash themselves in the process because they attracted valueless friends.

People like to call that karma.  It's common sense.


Breaking things down, just know two things:

Not everyone is going to like you.

Those who treat you poorly are sad themselves.


And remember that:

Everyone else is going through those last two things with all the people around them too, just like you are.

So cut them some slack.