“Why do we obsess over people we don’t like?”

Why?

I heard that phrase in a movie. It made so much sense to me that I had to repeat it under my breath a few times.

We hang over the words of people who don’t really mean much to us. We allow their perceptions of us to shape how we feel and how we see ourselves.

How dangerous.

How dangerous it is to give someone such immense power.

It’s even more dangerous when you don’t trust that person with it. When you don’t even like the person. When you’re not even fond of their being.

We are possessive by nature.

Not just of people but also of our image.

We don’t give ourselves the freedom to just be. It’s a constant state of war between the inner person fighting to be heard, seen, felt, and of the outer guard whipping us into shape to please, to no avail ever, people we don’t even like.

The people we do like (sometimes as scarce as one or two) are fond of us all the way in and have learned to accept our watch dog on a 24/7 surveillance with the exception of rare occurrences of complete freedom.

They’re somewhat critical of our constant struggle but never too critical because they know exactly how it feels like.

This is to the people whom I genuinely like and to the people whom I genuinely don’t.

Both of them have an equally crucial impact on a soul.

They’re both as critically important in shaping us.

But we are only ever empowered when we learn to mute those who are never pleased and keep close those who see us to the core.