Spend time with those who make your world a little brighter simply by being in it. – Don’t let the people who refuse to love you keep you from the people who do love you. Stop letting the wrong people get between you and the right ones.If they can’t reliably be there for you when you need them most, they’re not worth your time. – Don’t settle to simply be someone’s downtime, spare time, part time, or sometime. Stop letting people treat you like a back-up plan.You deserve to be with people who make you smile – friends who don’t take you for granted – friends who won’t leave you hanging.
– Sometimes people don’t notice the things we do for them until we stop doing them. Stop letting people take advantage of you.Some people will lie to you repeatedly in a vicious effort to get you to repeat their lies over and over until they effectively become true. If you catch someone lying to you, speak up. If someone fools you twice, shame on you. – If someone fools you once, shame on them. Stop letting the same people lie to you over and over again.BE a true friend to others, and keep only true friends close to you. – What is a true friend? Someone who loves you just the way you are, but still inspires you to be a better person. Stop letting friends be untrue to you.
Nobody has the power to make you feel small unless you give them that power. What you have to do is have the nerve to stand your ground. Sadly, some people just won’t be happy until they’ve pushed your ego to the ground and stomped on it. There is no freedom on Earth that gives someone the right to assault who you are as a person. – Today, the only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.
It takes a lot of courage, especially at 16 years of age, with a rough upbringing, to tactfully stand up for yourself. Maybe you should go even further back in time and change who you are instead.” And then he walked his mother to the front steps of the porch and politely asked her to leave.Ĭody’s response impressed me on so many levels. About 20 minutes into the conversation, she told him, “I see your anger, and I just wish I could go back in time and raise you again, to change who you are and give you a better upbringing.” Sara was about to walk out onto the porch to interject when Cody calmly replied, “I’m not angry. We occasionally eavesdropped from the living room window just to make sure everything was okay.Ĭody’s mother was extremely rough around the edges and almost immediately started bringing up hurtful memories from the past. Although Sara was a bit hesitant about it, she let Cody and his mother talk privately on the front porch. This past Saturday, while Angel and I were enjoying a safe and peaceful backyard barbecue at our friend Sara’s house, her 16-year-old foster child, Cody, received an unexpected visit from his biological mother – a woman who has been in and out of prison and rehab her whole life.
Be with those who bring out the best in you, not the stress in you.