This Is Why You Shouldn’t Care So Much About Being Well-Liked

My friend’s sister doesn’t like me. I had a feeling that she didn’t, and then my friend confirmed it. “Nope, she doesn’t like you,” she said. “I’m not sure why.”

I knew that no amount of trying to win the sister over would work. Her dislike of me was probably permanent. I didn’t want to dwell on it or focus any more energy on it than I already had. I knew that the inner teenager in me would be hurt, and wondered what I’d done to make this woman dislike me.

The last thing I wanted was to become consumed with the whys and hows of her dislike. I had to make peace with the fact that not everybody was going to like me.

I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a way I could win my dis-likers over. But the truth was that no matter how nice I was, how politically correct, and/or thoughtful I was, there would be some people who just didn’t care for me.

And there were a whole bunch of reasons that I had no control over. Maybe I did something that I wasn’t aware of, though in the case of the friend’s sister, I could think of a few social faux pas I had committed in her presence. I made amends and apologized for my actions, but in the end it didn’t matter — my friend’s sister wasn’t going to change her opinion of me.

There were people who would never like me, or had once liked me but no longer liked me, and some who were on the like-fence and could topple over to the dislike side pretty easily.

The thing is, there will always be people who don’t like us, but hopefully, there will be people who do. We can’t focus on other people and their feelings about us. The only person we need to be concerned about is ourselves, and the love we have for us.

Do you love yourself? This isn’t as easy as it sounds, and for many of us (probably most of us) it can take a long time to really accept and love yourself. It’s our own good opinion of ourselves that matters most.

If you tried to make every person like you, you’d have a full time job, and that’s just the people you know about. There could be hundreds of people who just don’t like you for whatever reason, and often it’s not a good one.

If you’re the best person you can be and you’re not hurting anyone, then it doesn’t matter who likes you or who doesn’t. If someone has decided they don’t like you, they’re missing out.

And my friend’s sister? She’s definitely missing out.