This is a little heart to heart with me, on choosing friends who actually love you. It is not worth it to impress the popular. I know everybody knows this, but I thought this small story from my life may touch y'all.
Most of y'all probably know me as the champion of states rights/political junkie. That is true, but this is a non-political post, I thought I should share a little tid bit/warning/redemption story from my childhood.
((DISCLAIMER: I do not know whatever happened to Lily, I believe she
matured since then. I have not seen her in forever so I can not say. I
barely remember how she looked... as she sort of "disappeared" after a
while. Lily (not her actual name) and I eventually made our peace as we got older. She matured alot,
although I have not seen her around... I'm not too sure what has become
of her... I wish I knew, we lost contact over the years. If I saw
Lily again... whereever she is, I would tell her; "Thank you." I have
nothing against her. )) I put that disclaimer up in case she somehow stumbles upon this, I doubt she will since I do not even know her email address... or where she is now. )))
I'm sure y'all have heard many times; "choose your friends carefully." are we really living it out?
Do we choose friends who will drag us down? Do we purposely try to make people like us, who we know do not?
Today I have two examples, one is from a book/movie the other from my own life.
Now, in the movie/book "North and South", (it does not end this way for James Huntoon in the movie) in the book he meets a sad ending, due to his own poor choices.
James Huntoon (in both the movie and book) is a fireeater secessionist politician. He loves to stand against the "establishment", and feels his ideas are often ignored by them, also he could not stop talking politics (some characters would get annoyed if he brought it up during casual conversion). However, he can not stand against his own wife. He marries Ashton, a beautiful, yet corrupt woman. He finds out Ashton is only using him because of his power, yet he forgives and loves her any way because Huntoon wants her to love him back. Forgiveness is amazing and I commend Huntoon for that, his main fault however was trying to make the "bad guy" (or "bad girl" in this case.) love him.
How the book ends- Ashton finds a more powerful guy, and poor James Huntoon was murdered. Right before his death he discovers what a deadly mistake he made. In the movie, Huntoon lives, and I think he divorces her... not sure :/
Crazy example I know, so here is one from my own life. I come from a small northern-central NJ town, there are not really that many people here my age to hang out with, I thought in Middle School. There was a very slim selection of kids, and this one girl I will call for the sake of protecting her real name "Lily."
Lily was popular, confident, and looked like she had a lot of friends. I wanted to be one of Lily's friends, like James Huntoon I wanted her to like me (as a friend, not in any other way.)
Also like Huntoon, I did everything to try to make her happy. I tried to hang out with Lily and her pals, but Lily would then just walk away from me. Lily said some stuff to me, that hurt (I do not remember what she said... it was so long ago, and I literally have not seen her in years....)
This deeply hurt, but I still wanted Lily's attention. By the time I was in Middle School it hurt so bad that I came home crying. I wanted to be loved, I wanted to have many friends. I had a few friends, but Lily would always step in between us and start talking.
I always liked "strange" things (in Lily's mind) like history, and later politics. Lily and her friends... I'm not sure what she liked since they'd always walk away on me...
By the time I got to high school, and joined an amazing group called "Generation Joshua" things changed. I met so many people who were genuinely my friends. At IGovern East 2010 ( a really cool mock government camp in Virginia, it is so beautiful and amazing there ;)), when I was Senate Minority Leader (a reason why I love that position...) I thought; "you know, I do not need Lily. I have everything I need right here!" I had friends that honestly cared about me, and not just what I had to offer them... IGovern changed my life, I loved it there. I met so many people that touched me in many ways; Dani, Jenaye, Andrew, Ryan, Christopher, Clay, Courtney, Michael, Brittany, Glenn, Joel, Will, Jeremiah, Mariah, Allee, Joanna, Elisheba, Sierra, Sarah, Cara, Calah, Tabby, Tony, Elisheba, Anna, Rebecca, Charity, Megan, Kanyn, Nicholas, IF I KEEP ON WITH THIS LIST, THE COMPUTER MAY EXPLODE ;D Seriously though, there are many more people unnamed that really just had a huge impact on my life. I went on to IGovern for two more years (2011 and 2012) was a VP candidate, represented South Carolina in the senate, led the fight for states rights. All this was amazing, but what truly was awesome was... I was with my true friends, no matter how much we differed or not on politics, they loved me for who i'am. I did not have to change to suit them. I made other friends also, from BJU Press Online and eventually Lily's friends befriended me when they found out she was using them. I also made friends with the "older" people.
Y'all know who y'all are, and thank you :D
Like the movie version of James Huntoon, I found out that the popular girl was just using her friends and I. Eventually her friends found out, and became friends of mine. Lily and I eventually made our peace as we got older. She matured alot, although I have not seen her around... I'm not too sure what has became of her... I wish I knew, we lost contact over the years. If I saw Lily again... whereever she is, I would tell her; "Thank you." I have nothing against her.
(Picture: James Huntoon from the movie "North and South", played by Jim Metzler sometime in the 1980s.)