" And the truth is if you act like you don’t care enough, people will eventually start to believe you. "

The One Who Cares Less

By Kovie Biakolo

I’ve often heard that people only start wanting you when they think that you don’t want them. It’s true; I’ve lived by it. Whether its business or friendships or especially romantic relationships, the person who cares less always seems to be the person who has the most power. At least that’s what it might feel like for the person that cares more. But I question whether this is true or not.

I have been called the, “queen of not giving a shit.” One of my many talents is that I am really good at both not actually caring, as well as acting like I don’t care. Just yesterday, some girlfriends and I were talking about boys and I quoted Almost Famous as my romance mantra, “If you never take it seriously, you never get hurt.” And it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve ultimately come off as cynical about relationships. People think it stems from really not caring; on the contrary, it stems from the fear of caring too much.

I know how to be the person who doesn’t text back, who doesn’t call back, who waits for the guy to make the first move, and who acts like I couldn’t care less whether he does or he doesn’t. Being this person comes natural to me because I have convinced myself that being the other person comes with too much potential damage. And I do think to an extent it does. I may never have truly had my heart broken, but I’ve known people who have; I’ve been there for them. And that shit isn’t fun. It’s depressing and devastating and oftentimes a really long journey to returning to being okay.

But the thing is I think people who put themselves out there; people who let you know they care a lot – I think that they have the right idea. I think the human heart especially when it’s young, is really resilient. I think that the journey to being okay when one’s heart has been broken is a journey that is usually worth facing even when love hasn’t done what you wanted. But when you’re the one who cares less, who apparently doesn’t care at all, you’ll go never go on this journey because you’ll convince yourself that you don’t need to. You convince yourself that you’re fine even when you’re not.

What people don’t seem to realize about the person who cares less or acts like they care less is that they’re usually the one who ends up being hurt the most. It is human to want love and to want to be taken care of and to want to take care of someone else. To deny that, is simply to deny one’s humanity. Being the “queen of not giving a shit” doesn’t make one healthier or stronger or wiser or cooler or even happier. It just makes you feel less human. It makes you feel, less and less.

When it’s all said and done, even people who are perfectly lonely and perfectly alone – still need their person. Whether it’s a romantic partner, a good friend, a loyal family member – everybody needs a person. And the truth is if you act like you don’t care enough, people will eventually start to believe you. So if you feel like you care too much or feel too much or love too much, remember that the alternative is worse. We should all try to seek balance because virtue is that middle ground between any two extremes. But when it comes to love, I don’t know if there is such a thing as loving too much or showing that you love too much. And if there is, I think it’s commendable; not something to be ashamed of. Because if you don’t tell people and show people that you do care, that you do have feelings for them, that you do love them, how the hell are they supposed to know?

So I suppose you can go through life thinking that eventually someone will break down all the walls that you’ve put up, because you don’t want anyone to know how much you can care; how much you can love. But life is short and people are busy. And maybe when the right person comes along, maybe they’ll see right through you. Maybe. But if you keep telling yourself that you don’t care, maybe you’ll also start believing it and you won’t even be able to see your person when you find them.

So get out while you can and start giving a shit; and if your heart breaks, let it break. Because it’ll be okay. You will be okay.

From : Thought Catalog

 Till then, xx.

FML

 

Life sucks and i feel like shit.
BUT IT'S OKAY; others have it worse than me

Till then, xx.

"And slowly, unceremoniously, you find your way back to yourself. "

This Is How You Lose Yourself

By Heidi Priebe

You lose yourself through compromise. In the beginning it’s only the small stuff – the dish you didn’t care for at dinner or the night you didn’t want to go out. But over time it turns to bigger things – the career path you could have pursued or the traveling you could have done, had you not had that person or that situation or that one inconvenience standing in the way. You don’t make active, conscious compromises but you let opportunities slide off your radar without a second thought – ones you would have, in another world, jumped at. Ones that could have made you more you. 
 

You lose yourself when you listen to closely to what everybody else has to say. You let your family tell you what job to work, your friends tell you who you should date and television tell you what you wear and how you should act at all times. You pass each meaningless checkpoint with a sense of detached apathy and you’re not sure where you have displaced your passion. You lose yourself when you let other people decide who you’ll become and you end up becoming second-rate versions of them instead of a first rate version of yourself. 

 

You lose yourself when you forget to make decisions – when the unlimited nature of options sends you into a paralysis that hastens you from choosing at all. When not deciding becomes your default mode because taking affirmative action seems too definite and you’d rather leave your options open. You lose yourself when the evasion of choice becomes the only choice you make and it is one that leaves you absolutely powerless. 
 

You lose yourself when you refuse to be tough with yourself. When the concept of ‘self-love’ stretches too far and veers into the territory of making you into someone you can’t respect. You let yourself take a few leniencies here, a couple cop-out moments there and suddenly your entire life bleeds into one giant excuse not to try. You don’t want to be rough on yourself or harsh to yourself and you’re your own best friend, right? So you let yourself wallow when you need to be sad and stay home when you don’t feel like going out and suddenly you’re someone who never leaves their room or get things done and you’re not sure what happened to the person who you used to be. 

You lose yourself when you refuse to take responsibility. You project all of your problems onto the world instead of asking yourself how to resolve them. You stew in a pit of your own issues and you reason that because they’re not your fault, they’re also not your responsibility to account for. And so you sit with those problems until they become the very essence of who you are. And you wonder when the world is going to cut you a break. 

You lose yourself methodically. You lose yourself accidentally. You lose yourself in a series of tiny, scarcely noticeable moments that distance you from the person you wanted to become. You lose yourself passively and unintentionally. You lose yourself in the pursuit of not messing it all up.

There are an infinite number of ways in which we distance ourselves from the people we’d like to be and almost none of them are born from intention. We become accustomed to making the easy choice, the reasonable choice or the straightforward choice rather than the choice we’d actually like to see happen. It seems harmless day to day and yet it builds up over the years: spilling over into every imaginable facet of our lives. One day we wake up realizing ten years has passed since the day we graduated or resolved to quit that dead-end job and where have we gotten? Who have we become? Which day-to-day choices brought us to this point where we have no grasp on the life we planned to lead?

We have to be more conscious of the infinite tiny moments that rob us of ourselves. Each chance we don’t take, each move we don’t make, every time we teeter on the line of “Why not,” and “Why bother” and we end up deciding on the latter. These are the tiny moments that rob us of what could be our lives greatest changes. And to find ourselves again in the midst of it all, we have to start making those tiny, minuscule choices that flip the whole thing on its head.

The compromises that we refuse to give in to. The advice you decide not to take. The times you force yourself to go out rather than staying in to wallow and the chances you don’t let yourself pass up. Just as you lose yourself slowly and unintentionally, you find yourself that way, too. You re-create yourself. You re-define yourself. You make a series of small, incidental choices that reverse the direction you are headed. And slowly, unceremoniously, you find your way back to yourself.

From : Thought Catalog

Till then, xx.