Some People Just Don’t Like You. And That’s Fine.

26 Feb

The light was doing that late-day California thing — molten gold sliding across the grass while a friendly breeze moved through the yard. The three dogs chased each other in ecstatic loops, drunk on freedom and adrenaline. We were leaning back in patio chairs, cracking open cans of Diet Coke like it was a ceremony.

And I was future-tripping.

I told her about the situation I’m in — one of those quietly charged crossroads that doesn’t look dramatic on paper but feels loaded in the chest. Two possible directions. Both appealing. Both viable. Both likely to make some people happy — and others not so much.

It wasn’t a moral crisis. It wasn’t life-or-death. It was simply this: at some point, choosing one path would require declining another. And I’ve been circling the decision like it’s a live wire, convinced that whichever way I lean, I’ll end up disappointing someone. Maybe a few someones.

No one had attacked me. This was entirely anticipatory. Entirely self-generated. But in my head, the verdicts were already written. The whispers are already forming. The subtle shift in tone, the tightening of smiles — I could see it all before anything had even happened.

“If I go this way,” I said, “I’ll look like an asshole. If I go that way, this other group will be all over me.”

I’ve spent enough years in recovery to know what I was doing. I was trying to control perception before it formed. Trying to pre-negotiate approval. Struggling to control the narrative for events that might never occur.

My friend let me spiral for a minute and then she cut it clean.

“Are there people you don’t like?”

Sarcastically, I replied, “None that come to mind.”

“No,” she said. “Really. Are there people you don’t like?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Plenty.”

“And there are people who don’t like you, right?”

“Absolutely.”

She shrugged. “Same with me. But look around.”

The dogs were crashing through a patch of sun like pagan deities celebrating something ancient and unspeakable. The air was warm and soothing. Just two humans and three dogs on a Tuesday evening.

“Look how nice this is. Some people don’t like us, but here we are, having a nice time, anyway.”

That was the satori.

Not that you should become indifferent or reckless. Not that other people’s feelings don’t matter. But that you cannot build a life around hypothetical disapproval. I’ve done that before. Delayed decisions. Softened truths. Withheld action. Tried to thread the needle so perfectly that no one could object.

And sometimes it worked. Often it didn’t. But every time I prioritized imagined backlash over my own alignment, something inside me faded. Self-respect leaks slowly.

I was reminded that compassion isn’t self-erasure. You can consider others without sacrificing yourself on the altar of their discomfort. And if someone is determined to misunderstand you, they will. If someone needs you to be the villain in their story, you will be cast.

The dogs don’t care. They sprint. They tumble. They bark. They exist. They don’t hold committee meetings about optics.

Liberation isn’t getting universal approval — it’s realizing you don’t need it. If you live long enough with integrity, you will disappoint people; but if you live trying not to, you will disappoint yourself.

Pick your cost.

The sun dipped. The light thinned. The dogs sat in the grass and panted contentedly. Nothing exploded. No judgment thundered down from the sky.

Just evening.

And the quiet understanding that fear makes a terrible compass.