As a whole, we humans can be pretty selfish. Immediate gratification seems to be the name of every game. It’s all about what we want, and we want it NOW. But like we’re taught by karma and our parents and real life – we don’t always gets we want. And that’s actually pretty great. If we got everything we wanted, we’d take everything we have for granted. We wouldn’t know what it means to fail, and then we most certainly wouldn’t know how to pick ourselves back up and try to succeed. We see tons of brats, maybe even grew up with them, who get everything they want and are total terrors. If not being spoiled and having to accept things I don’t like are the prices I have to pay to be a good person, then I’m happy to pay them.

It’s just hard. Sometimes I think we all forget this concept when it comes to people rather than material possessions. People are allowed to not love you back. People are allowed to not want you in their life. People are allowed to leave you. Sure, it’s okay to get miffed about your crush dating someone else or someone not wanting to be friends with you, but it’s not okay to take it out on them. You shouldn’t be mean to someone whose only offense against you is that they don’t want you.

Sometimes they don’t even mean to hurt you. Maybe they have their own problems they want to work out without getting you involved. Maybe they’ve fallen in love with someone else. Maybe they have changed and they aren’t the same person you first became friends with. Maybe you changed and they don’t like the new you. Whatever their reason was, it wasn’t random. They made the decision they thought was best for them and how can we fault them for that?

The only thing we can do is accept their choices and make peace with them. And if you’re the one who’s leaving? All you can do is come to terms with the fact that you needed to put yourself first, and that’s not something to be ashamed about. People coming in and out of your life, and you going in and out of theirs, is something that will just keep happening. Nothing is stable. Nothing is permanent. Nothing is infinite.

There’s something freeing about that. We can change if we want to. We can fall back on our human nature and be selfish and we can be selfless by letting others be too. And that’s okay. I can be the smart-aleck you knew as a kid or the cocky high school student or the nervous college girl. I can be them all at once, I can be none of them at all. I’m allowed to look at your sadness and still walk away in order to save myself.

Don’t be bitter towards people who are just trying to be happy. Instead, you should take a page out of their book and let yourself be happy too.