No one is perfect. Not you reading this. Not me – Elsie Godwin. We are not perfect. You are most likely the best thing to happen to someone and the worst in the book of another. Humans are complicated. We want what we cannot have, take what we have for granted, and crave things that are not good for us. We love people who hurt us, hurt people who love us, we support cancel culture, gossip, etc. We do it all. However, it is important that we love ourselves enough to cut down on our excesses and choose peace, always. I have found that training the mind to focus on positives amongst other emotions, and decisions helps us better, for self, and others.

I have also, noticed that people spend so much time complaining about how bad they were treated by others that they don’t know when they become what they criticize. They pay zero attention to working on the areas of their lives that should be worked on. Why do you feel so entitled to a person’s sacrifice in your friendship when you have not done anything for them that isn’t directly or indirectly for your selfish reasons? Are you a good friend? Take out the time to deeply reflect.

Think about someone in your life and how you have handled them in sickness or even in very small situations…what did you do? Were you there when you could, or was that excuse you gave very selfish? Did you make an effort to get back to them when you said you would? Have you tried to get more from them because you feel entitled to their service as your friend? When we think deep and hard about these things, we can be better. There is a likelihood that the person you are complaining about is most likely complaining about you to someone else, and we continue going around in circles of pain, disdain, and zero solution to our failing friendships.

I make it a point of duty to remind a hurting person of the amount of goodness that have come from the very place that is hurting them. If I don’t know about that place, I ask questions to understand their point of view and to help them reflect. It is not enough to let one wrong move decide the fate of a relationship that has been mutually beneficial for a better part of its duration. The key word here being – Mutually.

Being able to focus on a person’s positives regardless of how much they hurt you or go out of line, is largely dependent on your knowledge of their true intentions for you. Recently in a conversation, I told a friend that the level of friendship I want from my significant other has to be at the point where he understands that I am not perfect, he understands that I am very likely to say things or make side remarks that he might find unsettling and offensive, but he knows that my intention will never be to hurt him. So while I put in effort to work on myself and to be a better version of who I was yesterday, I need my loved ones to give me room to be.

Training your mind to focus on the positives does not always mean that the relationship will work or move past its issues to becoming stronger. It might just be the very reason you realize the relationship has to end. (For context, relationship in this article can be any form of relationships – from romantic to Work, or professional). Being intentional about training your mind to focus on positives helps you think through events genuinely, where you begin to understand the other person’s value, ethics, and intentions well enough to decide if it is time to close the curtains and/or create boundaries or work through issues. You are not letting the pain you feel decide what happens next, rather, you are at a point in your life where value given/received and appreciated, love professed and shared, and gestures reciprocated are what matter than idle gossips and holding grudges.

Be intentional…