I hope you know the Wicked song, or the remake by Ariana Grande. “Popular. It’s all about popular. It’s not about aptitude; it’s the way you’re viewed”. A twisted statement but historically and currently accurate. A lot of important decisions and elections are based on popularity.
Almost every movie or story surrounding friendship has this central plot. Popular person, beloved, successful, favoured, all that and then tragedy strikes and they slowly (or very rapidly) become ostracised and rejected, learning that popularity doesn’t equate to love.
I’ve met a lot of people in my life, some I’m still close with and some I am not. No hard feelings or anything, people do just grow apart. And that’s the thing. When you’re focused on growth, you learn that in order to grow, things need to be added and some things need to be left behind. When you’re focused on quantity over quality, you’ll often find yourself in positions of having to compromise core things or settling or being silenced, all to be accepted or keep numbers up. When you’re looking at numbers, it’s easy to not ask important qualifying questions that the masses might have overlooked or may be unimportant to them but critical for you. When you’re focused on growth, however, you learn the beauty of seasons and we all know the saying, “People come into our lives – some for a reason, some for a season and some for a lifetime”. The sooner you realise that, the sooner you free yourself up to be the best version of yourself you’re meant to be rather than the version everyone wants you to be; the sooner you can invest in the right relationships for your life and for your growth process.
Behind A Simple Face 