Your Life Is A Story, And Sometimes You Have To Kill Off The Supporting Characters

I love my friends, I really do.

Unfortunately, – or fortunately depending on how you look at it – I love myself more. Maybe I’m incredibly egotistical. Maybe I’m just overly egocentric. Maybe I’m selfish, disloyal, conceited and heartless. But I don’t think so.

In fact, I believe I’m the complete opposite of just that. After several years of battling with myself, having to balance out my wants and the wants of those closest to me, I had to make a difficult decision.

However, I am certain that it’s the right decision to make. I decided that even though I do love my friends, I love myself more and, for that reason, I’m letting them go.

Friends are, to a great extent, what make life beautiful. They show us that it’s possible to connect, to be part of something larger than ourselves – something that is crucial in a world that can prove, time and time again, to be cold and gloomy.

Without creating such strong bonds, it can be incredibly difficult to make it through life in one piece. Life has a way of pushing us down, thrashing us and tearing our spirits to shreds. Taking on the world on our own is impossible; we need friends, real friends, to succeed.

Sadly, friends can be – and, more often than not, become – a hindrance. Depending what it is that we want out of life, your friends can be the catalysts to your failures.

Just as much as they can help you progress, help support you and hold you up when you’re ready to fall, they can be the ones to push you off that cliff. What friends would ever do that you may ask? Well, none really... not intentionally, at least.

To be fair, our friends aren’t the ones to blame. Not entirely. It’s more our fault than theirs; it's not because they have nothing to do with being bad influences, but because we allow them to be such.

Your friends are their own people, with their own agendas, their own wants and their own preferred ways of living.

Friends are wonderful additions to your life until the moment you realize that they are leading you astray – until you realize that the life you want to lead differs greatly, and isn’t compatible, with the lives they wish to lead.

This is the reality of my situation that I had to accept. I love my friends because they are good people. They have many great qualities and I have plenty of reasons to stay close with them. However, I also have several reasons to cut ties.

What it comes down to is the fact that they want different things out of life. They see the world through a different lens and give importance to things that I believe to be entirely trivial.

As friends, they are there for me and support me when I need support. But what good is that when interacting with them only drags me further from my goals? We all have people in our lives whom we love, but that shouldn’t be the large part of our lives that they are.

Even if they should remain some part of your life, giving them as much time and attention as you’re giving them is harming you more than it’s helping you.

This may all seem a bit selfish, but think about this: Would your friends not be better off if they followed the paths they want to follow instead of having you there constantly trying to lead them in the direction you wish to travel?

Would you not all be better off removing the tension from all of your lives and separate, if only partially? You may feel as if you’re there to help them better themselves, better their lives.

Unfortunately, as I have learned the hard way, some people don’t want your help – even your friends. In fact, some will despise you for thinking that they need help.

Your life is a story – a story that you write every second of every day, from the moment you can pick up a pen to the moment you no longer have the strength to press it against the parchment.

You are the main character and, as in any story, you are who matters most. You cannot live for other people unless it benefits you in some way.

You’re not a martyr. You’re not selfless. You are the most important person in your life because you are your life.

No matter how much you love your friends, no matter how much you enjoy your time together, if they deter you from pursuing your dreams, from becoming the person that you need to become, they aren’t worth having.

It is said that the most important things in our lives are the people that we share it with… I can’t argue against that. But what happens when the people you share your life with make you loathe the life you’re leading?

What happens when those people make you ashamed of the person you are, of the life you lead, and of what little you have been able to accomplish?

Friends are great additions to your life only when they are great additions. As the main character of your story, you sometimes have no choice but to kill off some of the supporting ones.

Photo Courtesy: We Heart It

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