What I’ve Started Noticing About People

I’ve been paying attention.

Not because I’m looking for reasons to distrust people.

Because patterns eventually become impossible to ignore.

Have you ever noticed that the people who talk the most about someone else’s life are usually avoiding their own?

I’ve thought about that a lot.

Why spend so much time discussing another person’s marriage?

Another’s person’s children?

Another person’s home?

Another person’s character?

What is it about someone’s else’s life that feels so much easier to carry than your own?

The more I observe people, the more I realize that not everyone is looking for understanding.

Some people are drawn to conflict.

Where there is calm, they create drama.

I’ve learned that some people don’t know how to be part of something healthy because dysfunction has become normal to them.

They can create whatever version of you in their heads.

At some point, you would think that time would teach accountability.

Reflection.

Lead to change.

But I’ve learned that age doesn’t automatically mean someone matured mentally.

Some people still carry the same bitterness.

The same resentment.

The same unwillingness to take responsibility.

Years pass.

But their behavior stays the same.

Real growth isn’t measured by time. It’s measured by whether you’re willing to change.

Remember this, it doesn’t take much to create a lie.

One person starts it.

Another repeats it.

And before you know it, people start speaking about your life as if they lived it.

They tell you what you’ve been through.

They question your experience.

They speak with such disgust that, without realizing it, they tell on themselves.

Because people who genuinely know you don’t speak about you with hatred.

They don’t need to recruit people to dislike you.

Sometimes, people think they’re exposing you.

When in reality…

They’re exposing their true colors.

— Abi Brooklyn