What Did They Teach You?
by Michael Feeley
People arrive and depart from our lives with remarkable regularity. Some stay for coffee, others for chapters. Not all of them become friends, and that’s perfectly fine. Friendly matters. Friendship isn’t always necessary.
Here’s a question worth asking: What am I choosing to learn?
Every person who crosses your path carries a curriculum and choices – about money, love, work, integrity, truth, and trust. About how they see the world and how you see it, both in similar and different ways. You can ignore the lesson. You can speed through the encounter focused only on what you need from them. Or you can pay attention.
Some people illuminate something in us that we didn’t know existed. Others reveal precisely what we don’t want to become. We celebrate the presence of the former and feel grateful relief when the latter moves on. Neither reaction is wrong or harmful. Both teach us something about ourselves and humanity.
The relationships that genuinely matter? You know them instantly. They make your life measurably better. For those, you fight. You improve. You work through the hard conversations because losing them would diminish you.
The others – the brief encounters, the conflicts, the mismatches – they’re not failures. They’re data. They show us who we are, what we value, and where our boundaries live.
Every person is a mirror. The question is whether you’re willing to take the opportunity to look and learn.
Thanks – Michael (he, him)
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This matters too – Respect for People and Things.
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