January 24 - Monarchy; bureaucracy; delinquency; mediocrity.

I’m a very firm believer that your gut instinct is never wrong.

I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m good at reading people. I’m very analytical, I can easily judge the reasons behind someone’s behavior or trace psychological patterns. I guess you could say it’s easy for me to pick apart someone’s brain. That’s a skill that comes in handy. It allows you to understand people on a much deeper level than others might see. But that’s very clinical. It comes from studying facts and analyzing behavior.

I try to be rational about all the decisions I make. Letting my emotions get the best of me tends to be a very stupid move, and I’m sure many people can agree that it’s the same for them. Along with my ability to study people, I’m good at distancing myself from any given situation, to look at things objectively. It’s a very, very useful skill. Once you can take your own bias and emotional needs out of a situation, the answer to any given problem becomes simple. Maybe not black and white, but certainly not so complicated.

But sometimes all the logic and critical thinking in the world can fail you. And that’s when I trust that little nagging feeling in my stomach. Because I always know the right thing to do. I think we all know what’s best for us, instinctively. The problem comes when we decide to ignore what the right thing is in favor of our preferred choice.

It’s easy for people to judge an outside situation. You see it all the time. A girl in college, born and raised catholic, will vehemently oppose abortion and call it murder. She’ll protest outside Planned Parenthood and go to anti-choice rallies. But then one day her birth control fails, and she’s faced with a choice. Drop out of school, give up her dreams, marry her boyfriend, raise this little ball of stem cells that will someday be a baby, and essentially abandon every single idea of the life she wants. That’s too much for her, and she fixes her little problem. She was just one unplanned pregnancy away from being pro-choice. Why? Because she was judgemental. Because she never considered the other point of view. Because she wasn’t educated, because she was biased, because she never did her research. It’s so, so easy to form an opinion on a situation you’ve never been in. A girl will say that anyone who stays in an abusive relationship is stupid, that she should just walk away, it’s the only option, but ask her about why she stayed with her cheating ex so long and she’ll say it’s not that simple.

I know that if you’re not being treated with the respect you deserve, the right thing is to walk away. That is the bottom line, and that’s what I live by. I deserve respect, because I’m worth that. People who don’t respect me have no place in my life. If someone doesn’t make me happy, there’s no reason to associate with them. No relationship is perfect, even friendship is work, and it takes effort. But you have to have standards for yourself. You deserve to be treated right. And I accept no less.

I’m glad I’ve listened to my gut for a long time now. Because every time I’ve doubted my past decisions I’ve been proven to be right. I couldn’t put it into words at first, but any friend who makes me feel worse about myself doesn’t have a place in my life. Anyone who made me feel anxious, and unsure, and unworthy needed to go. I could tell I couldn’t trust them, because every word out of their mouth sounded like a lie. And it was. When someone is never truthful, is never really honest, when they try so hard to fit themselves into the mold they think you want only to lead a complete other life, when you know everything about this friendship feels wrong, it is wrong. And your gut is right.

I surround myself with wonderful people because I deserve that. I make mistakes and I say mean things sometimes but I’m always trying to do better, and to be better. And I deserve good, trustworthy friends who enjoy my company, not people who treat me like I’m this season’s trend and I could be out any minute. I deserve not to be lied to, and I deserve to be cared about. I deserve realness, and happiness, and people who will treat me right.

And guess what? You deserve that, too.