What are the odds that in your 23rd year of life, let’s say, you will cross the street in Keokuk, Iowa and be flattened by a beer truck careening through town at 47 miles per hour?
Most oddsmakers would figure that one as close to zero.
The same odds exist for the likelihood that everyone is going to like you. Yet, many of you doubtless agree that you won’t be happy until everyone does. So it’s critical to ask yourself this reasonable question: If something is never, ever going to work out, why are so many of us still chasing that dream? Why pin your hopes on something that is impossible? These are important questions because once you examine the odds — once you see the light — you free yourself from that trap.
Sure, we all want to be liked and accepted. But there is something strangely liberating in knowing that there will never come a time when all the rest of the world likes you or approves of what you do. This will be true whether you are a football star, head cheerleader, a chess champion or just a darn nice girl or guy. No matter who or what you are, no matter how much you try, there will always be people who simply don’t like you. They are envious of you, or you are simply not their “type.” You have little control over this. Even though most of you live the Golden Rule (or so I would hope), you just can’t nail down that dream that everyone will be nice to you.
Still, of course, you try. Nothing wrong with that. Hang in there.
There’s good news here, though. Although you have next to no control over who will like you or be nice to you, somehow the people you need in your life will be there for you — people who’ll have your back. This will happen as long as you accept the fact that not everyone you think should be your friend will be. This is important to remember as you struggle to free yourself from feeling bad when you don’t feel accepted by certain people. This group of friends may be large, or it may be small. But they are there.
It’s important to examine why they like you, though. I had some pretty good friends in high school, and I was happy with that. But one fine, sunny day I bought a beautiful little British sports car (OK, I know you’re going to ask: It was an MGTD, black with red upholstery, the first one in town). Suddenly, as if by magic I had more friends than I could possibly have imagined, and I had to figure out who really liked me—or really liked my car. And while a couple more lasting friendships came out of that circumstance, most of them soon fell away as they all got to ride in it and the novelty wore off. Your real friends are there for you, because you are you.
It goes without saying that if almost no one likes you, you probably need to take a look at what you’re putting out there, but that’s certainly a topic for another column.
If you are nice to someone and hope a friendship comes about, and that person responds to you in the way you hope, that’s great. You have a new friend. If he doesn’t, that’s all right too, because it reminds you that there isn’t always a perfect match.
Above all, recognize that you don’t need the world to love you. A few perfect matches is good enough. It’s always been enough for me, and it will be so for you, as well.
Robin C. Harris, an 18-year resident of Lake County, is the author of “Journeys out of Darkness, Adventures in Foster Care.” A retired educator, he is a substitute teacher for Lake County schools and has recently completed two works of fiction for children and teens. He is available for tutoring in first through eighth grades. Harris can be contacted at harris.tke@att.net.
