There is a reason why people come and go (or stay) in our lives. When I reflect back on the people I have met over the course of my life, I realise that no matter what the relationship was like with the person, I learned something from it. It’s very common for people to ask others, how someone is doing and what they’re up to now, as I’ve come to realise. But it’s rare that they truly care, and more often they just want to gossip about it. They will talk about things that they know the details of about two sentences of. I say this because I only have a very very small amount of people I talk to in my life, who know what I’m going through. It shows that often the people we will have a long term (or life time) relationship with, are the ones who truly care.
People come and go in our lives, but this happens in a lot of other aspects of our lives. These include jobs, material possessions, familiarity, new places and such. The lessons we learn from mistakes, experiences, people, new things and memories. When we are young, it’s natural to have different friendship groups especially because we change so much during those years. A common example in the way people come and go, is the way we interact and see everyone everyday at school. The day when everyone leaves the nest, people tend to only keep in contact with those that also put in the effort, time and care for. That is when you will learn that many friends interact with others out of convenience and other friendships last through distance and time.
The people who come may be in your life at that time to help you through a period of struggle or share joyful moments together. They may be someone who shows you their true colours, and teaches you the importance of surrounding yourself with those with similar values. Everyone will share different advice, but it’s the choice and ability to choose the one that is beneficial to yourself. The wonderful thing about meeting new people, is the way that we are all just strangers walking by. There is so much to discover and get to know from a person when we take the time. The encounters we have can often teach us something about the person or about ourselves. We discover more about how our mind works and how someone else may see the world.
The people who go may go naturally or through different reasons. Perhaps it may of developed into a toxic relationship, other times someone may be moving away and sometimes it’s simply that time to go separate ways. We won’t be best friends with every person in our lives, and every relationship will have its ups and downs. It’s like a chapter beautifully closing and other times it’s a chapter of your life that is much needed. People are living their own life, they’re moving and changing and sometimes two people cannot move the same direction together. It means that they must go away on their separate paths. An example is a beautiful friend I met last year. She was always there to show that she cared, listened and we shared lovely conversations together. But, over time we simply moved on with our own lives.
The people who stay are very often those such as our family and those who we share an emotional connection with over the years. They are people we place our trust and love with. Long term relationships grow over time, because both individuals experience the ups and downs of life’s roller coaster. Even through the tough times, they stick together and make the effort and time to make it work. Life is a journey, not a destination. Time will always keep going and we have to move with it. We’ve all experienced good and bad relationships with people, but a few things I find very important in a positive friendship is to have trust, similar values, the ability to make time, being a good listener, understanding without judgment and sharing joy for the small things.
Tien-Jen 