Sometimes The Only Person You Can Rely On Is Yourself

People are just people. Nothing less nothing more. They are beautifully flawed human beings doing their best to make it through the day. It is not people that disappoint you. It is your expectations for these people that disappoint you.

“Expectation is the route to all heartache”- William Shakespeare.

This is sadly something I have always believed in. Maybe it was all the melancholy literature I read or the fact that I genuinely prefer sad break-up music over happy upbeat music. I have always found a greater story in sadness. There was just more to it than happily ever after. Happily ever after was never believable to me. Even as a child I was waiting for the …. part on the next page. I was waiting for everything to fall apart. I never believed anything was that simple.

I never believed happiness was as attainable as they made it seem. It never felt real to me. It was like I was waiting for the heartache to happen. My low expectations kept me from being disappointed, but they also kept me from believing in real happiness.

I protected myself with this Shakespeare method. All these years I thought I was ahead of the game. When in reality this mentality became self-sabotaging. I was always prepared for the worst, so when it came it had no effect on me. You can’t burn someone who is already ice. You can not hurt the numb. You can’t break what’s born broken. The thing about being numb is they do not tell you what you are giving up. You are giving up the chance to feel. You are not allowing yourself to get hurt, but you are also not allowing yourself to be happy either.

This the “sky is falling” attitude creates a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. It is mind over matter. It is the law of attraction. If you believe everything will fall apart you become your own domino effect. When you believe you can’t rely on anyone but yourself you are subconsciously creating walls. You trust no one and you do not let anyone in.

I am not saying to become a damsel in distress. There is a happy medium out there. I may not believe in happily ever after, but I believe in a happy balance.

A person that “does not need anyone” lives in a lonely world. Being independent is not the same as being alone. You can let people in without letting them be your whole world. You can feel without giving up all your power. Sometimes the only person you can rely on is yourself but sometimes is not all the time. On that sunny note, I am not going to lie to you. People will let you down.

They will let you down most of the time (probably multiple times a day), but this does not have to make or break you. Things will always happen, but it is not the things that happen to you that define you. It is your reaction to them. You and you alone are in control of your emotions.

Just because you are a “good person” does not mean someone will be a good person back. We do not always get what we deserve. I would like to be an advocate of the golden rule, “treat others the way you want to be treated.”

Yet there is a fatal flaw in that rule that everyone seems to miss. Not everyone wants to be treated the same way you do. How you may want to be treated, may not be how others want to be treated. While you may always put others first; it does not mean others have that same mentality. This seems simple but it is a tough life lesson to learn.

The bottom line is everyone is different. We are not mind-readers and people more often than not, do not always speak their truth. The only way to secure your happiness and well-being is to be in complete control of it, therefore you only rely on yourself. You are your source of income, source of happiness, source of health.

You are who you are because of you and no one else.