(1 min read)
When people rub us the wrong way whether in person or via social media we may decide to shut down the relationship – taking the position that “they’re not worth it,” meaning this particular person is not worth the energy it takes to engage them. Strong words.
This may well be true, but it’s hard to disappear a person completely. Friends of friends may bring them up, happenstance can happen upon you, your privacy settings may fail you… not to mention the times this person shows up in your head unannounced and kicks off an imaginary argument, which you then carry with you into the shower or the car ride home.
In fact, we do expend energy on the people we dislike or disagree with, perhaps moreso than on the people we like and agree with.
We’re suckers for unfinished business, for needing to put the period (or exclamation point!) at the end of a conversation.
And so we keep this person alive in us, and though they may be deserving of our ire, we’re the ones who feel the recoil, we’re the ones who get tired from clenching our fists.
So many of us, walking around with the wrong people in our heads, unwilling to do the thing that frees us because we don’t want to let them off the hook. We are right. We are right.
So we carry the burden and add another body to the pile.