One of the things I enjoy the most about being alone sometimes is the many thoughts I get about things happening to me and around me. I don't get to have this reflective thinking when I'm in the midst of people because I get distracted easily and don't get to give it the one hundred percent focus that it deserves.
Today was one of those alone days for me because most of the people at my hostel have traveled down to their various villages and it was just me with nothing to do other than to keep myself company with my thoughts, and that was when I started thinking about this friend of mine who has been getting on my nerves for a while now.
You see, back in the day, I used to be this guy who liked to be transparent with my feelings and had a bit of an anger issue. So it took little to no effort for someone to provoke me and whenever they did, I always made it known to them by not speaking to them for days, sometimes even weeks.
To me, being that expressive was the best way to handle things, and it didn't even matter if I was going to need their help for something in the future, I was ready and willing to put whatever that thing was in jeopardy just to make sure that person felt the full wrath of my anger, even though that only meant me not speaking to them for a while.
But then behaving that way started to cost me in some ways because there were things only that person could do for me, things that meant a lot to me that I had no other choice but to forfeit due to anger and pride. So what did I do, I became smarter.
I realized that just because you don't like someone doesn't mean that you have to be enemies with them, especially if that person has resources that might be useful to you in the future. I worked on my tolerance and learnt to increase it to a level where I could ignore whatever rubbish that person was doing if it meant that I was going to benefit something from you in the future, I learnt to focus on the bigger picture.
"The art of manipulation" I like to call it sometimes, or "fake it till you make it"... Now is it a good character to exhibit, maybe not, but being blunt all the time will get you nothing but enemies if you're not so careful, so make your choice.