By Zethu Zwane
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Not Dealing with Bad Encounters Leads to Selfishness and Resentment even when You can’t See it. And worst yet your group of friends could be the ones reinforcing your beliefs.
That’s because you’re surrounded by the same memorable messages of competition and resentment. It’s hard to rewire your brain to something different until you’re aware of how your friends and overall world encourages a behavior of competition and unhappiness.
Memorable messages are frequent stories that you hear and as a result of constantly hearing them become your identity. Strange right? But this explains why God will call some to break generational chains.
It’s not enough for you to seperate your beliefs and ideas from family and friends, God says you’ve been chained to these ideas. This is the reason why the Bible has countless stories of people doing the impossible to break the gains of oppression or the yoke of idol worship.
You’re hardly left feeling good whenever friends compete over issues, or live in general. It can be irritating, but surrounding yourself with the same responses means you’re likely to behave the same. Horrifying right. Now if you’re seeking a life plan that seperate people’s behavior like this from yours, you need to clean house.
Read on if you’re looking for emotionally healthier relationships. These relationships set healthy boundaries allowing you to live with humility and care free.
On the other hand competative friends will do more harm. Read up to see how influential memorable messages are over your life, and whay you can do about it in order to live free from resentment and comparisons.
Set Better Life Boundaries around Bad Friends
If you’ve ever been around a bad crowd of people, you’ll know it’s time to do a spring cleaning on your life. More especially when you’ve established a personal relationship with Christ.
Bad friends thrive on reinforcing there bad behavior. It wouldn’t make sense for you to try being righteous around malicious or gossiping friends. These 2 worlds can’t coexist.
In my previous article on removing bad friends, I said bad friends will call you stupid, useless, lost and incompetent for not living like them. They need you to carry these labels to make them feel powerful. They need your beliefs to be wrong to justify why they look for heartbreak at every opportunity.
After observing people in their 50s, 60s and 40s I’ve decided bad friends are a consistent poison. They will never change; they only worsen. I believed the 40 year old would give me wisdom only to realize bad beliefs don’t discriminate.
Your Life is more than Mindless Comparisons
How many of you have found yourself competing mindless subjects. Bad people will find anything to argue like who has the best lipstick. Seriously has life stressor been reduced to arguments over best shoes? Yet bad company thrive on comparisons. Bad freinds will reduce your life goals to lipstick fights. You’re worth much more than. I was dumbfounded because aren’t these behaviors you leave in highschool.
Sadly many people refuse to leave pain and heartache. They are chained to it. They’re enslaved in a world of comparisons and Resentment. I want you to join me on a new mission. Don’t have another birthday, but still have some bad people in your world. remove them now.
If you feel the same, it’s time to clean house so your life plans are clear. Remove the distractions of dead comparisons. Removing bad company gives you growth. If you need more reasons why, read this article to see how damaging bad company is to your life goals.
Hurt People Hurt People
Disappointing right because it’s a drawn-out saying? I also pray I didn’t have to start with a cheesy line. Yet there’s no way of ignoring this phrase when it’s so prevalent in our Global community. Especially with the rise of loneliness; you could argue loneliness will also increase Selfishness.
That’s because there’s a part of unresolved emotions that leads to wanting wantindrg prove people wrong. When you’re isolated like the stats say 70% and up of people are, that means you’re also disconnected.
You’re disconnected with learning to accept different worldviews and perspectives. When you experience pain, you end up wanting to be understood. Did someone understand you? How easy was it for you to touch on these issues?
Pain causes a yearning to be heard and seen. And the world seems to be clawing to this yearning with labels like safe spades popping up. We’re becoming too sensitive as opposed to healing.
Bad Friends only Increase Hardships and Selfishness
What’s more is bad friends are artists at increasing resentment. They want to be seen living in hardships by celebrating debts, divorce and cheating. Have you ever sat in a chat with your friends and these always one who says “This is about me.” Or have you seen one reality person say “It’s my turn,” while scrambling to be centered stage. Lonelinesssong bad friends leads to selfishness and resentment.
Bad friends increase your yearning to be seen because thy don’t listen. They create a gaping hole within your emotional needs. That’s becsause comparison has no room for empathy. When you open your mouth to seek counsel from a friend, they reply with “that’s not as bad as what happened to me.”
What happened to the art of speaking. Bad friends force you to claw to be heard. And a bad friend will use your ears like social media; like comment and subscribe. Oh and if you mention yourself, they delete your comment. It’s not surprising loneliness is on the rise when the idea of friendship is being abused.
We’re created to be social creators not to worship each other. Yet bad friends glorifying and worship heartbreak and competition. So how do you delete a friends words who’s right in front of you. That thought crossed my mind when a former friend didn’t even register what I said. I sat there feeling more lonely in her presence than I did alone. Bad friends have no kind words to share except father own praise.
God as the Center
Now I know many of you will agree God is meant to be the center of all my worries. That you should be bringing your burdens to Him. However our human interacterions teach is empathy. You being able to understand someone else’s experiences is central to God’s overall plan. How will you share in joy an blessings when you believe anything good is yours alone. Remember comparisonsneed a winner and a loser.
As a result if you’re surrounded by bad company that swipes past your cry for help, how do you learn empathy. This unresolved gap creates a hole for selfishness. Unmet needs lead to a cry to be seen. And without seeing it, you could end up being selfish to the very people who care about you.
Ironic isn’t it? That’s why parents come home and yell at their kids instead of their boss. That’s why couples fight over the milk instead of addressing the hardships of work. Repressed emotions are the easiest thing to escape your process of healing.
And bad friends will exaggerate these feelings. By observing this world contually, you’ll see give in realizing the only way to be heard is to scramble for an ear. To scream over someone’s comment. To laugh over someone’s comment just to insert yours. Bad company corrupts absolutely, and I guess that includes your heart.
What Can You do About Friends Lacking Empathy
First forgive them because chances are they were raised like this. Or there was a turn of events in their lives and they’re now like this. Then the most important part is not all your friends are meant to be your confidante.
The biggest misconception we make is believing all friends need to know about your struggles. About your career goals or your relationships. Best advice I’ve ever learned is keep your family and intimate relationship private: not for public and friend conversation. Separating these topics actually empowers enjoy your friends without expectations.
However, these friends who lack empathy can still exist in your life. If they do not encourage competition, revenge, unforgiveness, or gossip they can stay. Do activities with them that require less talking.
This includes watch parties like I used to do for Scandal, GOT and Westworld. Game day tailgating is also superb for friends you find want to compete even time you talk about something.
Normalize Creating Healthy Boundaries with Friends
Friends who lack empathy, but are not abusive are great for going out for a girls night out. You need to consider going out with them for movie night. This will ensure they don’t harm you emotionally by being inconsiderate. Yet when you go out golfing, you’re still sharing in positive memories. Oddly enough the friend lacking empathy taught me this!
Several studies support healthy boundaries as opposed to ending it. Howevr this is excludes abusive friends. I had one friend who was self-centered. She always wanted to talk about her. If she didn’t get any compliments, she’d force us to home.
So after a year I started questioning our friendship. I was tired of the one-sided conversations. When she needed help, I had to stop everything. Yet when I needed it, she was too busy completing some project.
Realize this, healthy boundaries can lead to better friendships. The only way to stop feeling lonely is if you make boundaries around these kinds of friendship. She’s the let’s go out for Kareoke night friend. She’s the hang out at Starbucks friend. She the get a quick lunch friend. She’s the friend you go to every movie release.
Non-Abusive Selfish Friends Can still be Enjoyable
Reason being is she wasn’t an abusive friend. Just selfish with her emotional time. Whereas your emotional time should be important to you. Especially if quality time is your love language, then people’s responses matter.
Even people whose love language is gifts can be with selfish friends. All they need to do is keep them as Girls night friend. Peoples who’s love language feel loved when they get gifts, but remember your selfish friend might not care to remember.
In general having this kind of friend can teach you unconditional. Only if they are not abusive. Abusive friend’s needs to be removed. Consequently create boundaries to prevent disappointment. You might feel different.
Friends Lacking empathy struggle seeing you because they also desire to be seen. They’ve been hurt too many times. As a result, this might clash with your love language. All of these hurdles are resolved when you find more activities to do with suggestions a friend. However not so true if your love language is receiving compliments.
People whose love language is praise might have an issue with doing activies that remove talking. For them relationships deepend when they talk. In that case it’s time to have a difficult conversation
When you need to unpack yor dirty laundry
Warning! People will not always respond positively to your hard conversations. I had to learn how to have difficult conversations from work, which made me reflect on my relationships. Previously I used to hate hard conversations completely.
If you sense or don’t know if your friend thinks in ultimations, try say positive things before you start. Then you can follow those positive words with letting them know how you feel.
It could go like this; “Hey friend when we chat about my issues, you always say what about yours. This makes me feel lonely, Sad , disappointed or rejected.” Choose any of these emotions you feel. Focus on how you feel. How does the interaction make you feel.
Then follow with suggestions. You could give a specific example. For instance you can say; ” when I was talking about a difficult project, I would have appreciated your ears and empathy. Like to say you’re strong and capable. Sorry for how you feel, but I’m here for you to hear you.”
Also many of the times your friend Dan echo what you say to show they care. If you love language is gifts, you could let your friend know that giving them a small cheering letter would do. I always try learning my friends love languages because it will help you know how to love them deeply.
When it’s time to Leave a Selfish Friend
Remember a selfish friend can make you selfish. Self-centered friends will teach you how to be Self-centered. That’s because you’ll absorb their behavior. If you don’t show that behavior in front of them, you’ll practice it with coworkers and friends.
There was one teammate who always complained about all she did at home. From cooking, chores to driving family members around. Yet at work whenever you asked her for a drink, she’d also go into a panic. Setting boundaries around family is one thing, but you need boundaries around friends.
Quote: As obedient children, do not conform to aa evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.
1 Peter 1:14 NIV
I picked up I was becoming selfish after my friend would always leave me panicking. She never wanted to spend her money, but was always ready to spend mine. If she bought me a meal for E200/ $10, she’d expect me to pay for something worth E2,000/$100.
It made me panic because in her mind this $100 was never paid. It’s a bottomless hole of $100s. Non empathetic friends like that will always hold something over you. They struggle seeing when you’ve been. It doesn’t exist. As a result I found myself refusing to borrow people money when I’ve always done it with ease.
Selfishness is the theif of generosity. Instead of addressing the friend, I found myself refusing to help my nephew. That’s when I needed to do a spring cleaning of my life. If you’re also feeling stressed out by friends, time to clean up. If you don’t know what you’re easily annoyed the journal. Chances are prayer and journaling will point to the issue. Her Selfishness was rubbing on me. I needed to remind myself.
When you find yourself becoming selfish because of friends set better boundaries. oI even tried talking to her, boundaries. Sometimes talking to them about their lack of empathy will fail.
Once you’ve failed and the person doesn’t come back to you a year later, remove them to that activities friends. Again that’s only if they are not verbally manipulative or abusive. Toxic friends need to be remained fast.
Personally I’ve learned to accept people who’ve growth. If they’ve seen they were a selfish friend, I’m okay with trying again. The most important thing about all relationships is you are teaching the. about your world and expectations, and they are teaching you about their world and expectations.
If you friend is unwilling to change, then be prepared to leave them. There’s no point in keeping someone, but you end up a statistics on the loneliness meter. Your Life is worth more than being reduced.
More so there is more to life than feeling lonely and end up hurting others. If you feel overwhelmed by one relationship, speak up. Speaking up will help you heal.
Silencing your true feelings leads to Selfishness and Resentment, don’t let a bad friend teach you this. Be a beacon of hope wherever you are and bless people around you by continually showing love, generosity and hope.
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