Social Media IRL: Unfollow The Toxic People Who Only Bring You Down

It can be difficult to understand life properly. One could argue all life is equal and important. Just the same, one could argue there are degrees to life, to the importance of life.

Some would argue consciousness is the pinnacle of life, life’s greatest creation – that which distinguishes the more trivial beings from the more meaningful or beautiful.

Then we have levels or degrees of consciousness itself. There are those who believe consciousness exists in all forms of matter – living and lifeless alike.

Of course, no one will argue a rock has the same level of consciousness as a worm or a worm the same level as a human being.

Nevertheless, it makes understanding existence – in its completeness – much more difficult.

Human consciousness is definitely the most interesting of things.

We have the ability to create realities far removed from that which exist in the physical world – something most other living things do not have the ability to do, and none of which have the ability to do so to such a great extent.

Nonetheless, unless we’re insane, our realities are based on the world around us. Our realities are formed by the way we interpret the things and people we interact with.

Of all the things we interact with and fill our lives with, other people have the greatest influence on our realities.

This is incredibly important to keep in mind; if we want to have control of our realities and the way we experience life, we need to be wary of whom we let be a part of our lives, influence us and shape our realities.

Sometimes you need to unfollow people – not just on Twitter or Facebook, but in real life as well.

In life, there are those who care and those who only pretend to care.

Of course, there are also those who don’t care about you and make it known they don’t care about you, but they tend to remove themselves from your life without you having to push them out.

When we’re talking about those who are a larger part of your life, we can basically categorize everyone into the two categories previously mentioned. What’s often difficult is distinguishing one group from the other.

It’s difficult understanding whether people who become a part of your life truly care about you and your wellbeing or whether they’re simply acting as if they care because it’s convenient for them.

People don’t like being alone and will often attach themselves to individuals they don’t especially care about, if only to stave away loneliness. The problem arises when they feel they no longer need your companionship.

Once these individuals find people they do care about, they will drop you in an instant, leaving you on your lonesome. If you rely on such individuals too much, you may be setting yourself up for massive disappointment.

I believe if we were all completely honest with ourselves, we’d be able to differentiate these sorts of individuals from true friends – we just like to ignore the signs. We ourselves don’t want to be lonely and have likely already formed our realities around these individuals – realities that rely on their friendship.

If this is the case, then you need to find the courage to unfollow them sooner than later. The pain will only be worse the longer you wait. And it’s much better they leave your life on your terms and not the other way around.

There are those in our lives who care about us, but simply aren’t good for us.

This is often a hard truth to accept. It can be incredibly difficult to admit to ourselves that those individuals whom we care about, who we know likewise care about us, are no good for us. Whether it is a friend or a lover, there always comes a point when someone very close to us is doing us much more harm than good.

You need to remove these people from your life. They do the most damage when it comes to our personal realities. Because we love these individuals and at the same time, feel pain because of them, we too often correlate love with pain. Our understanding of what it means to love, to be in love and to be loved become tainted.

The foundation of human nature is love. We all want it. We all need it. We all build our lives around it, however, how each of us perceives and understands love, varies. It all depends on how we constructed our realities.

If you keep all the wrong people in your life, then I’m afraid you may be creating a reality for yourself that you won’t be able to live with.

More is less.

Quality over quantity is key – key to everything really. Regardless of whether we’re talking about consumer goods, habits or relationships -- it's better to maintain fewer -- actually maintaining them is the key to happiness. It’s the key to creating the ideal reality for yourself.

Deep and meaningful relationships require a lot of time to develop and constant nourishment indefinitely, or otherwise, we risk them withering away. But it isn’t just about maintaining relationships; it’s also about learning to appreciate them, about integrating them with our realities to such an extent that they uplift and increase the vivacity of the realities we’re living in.

While relationships with individuals can do us great harm, amazing relationships can add to our lives exponentially. Having good people in your life, people who care for you, who are there for you and you care for in return, make life worth living. They make creating a pleasant and hopeful reality for yourself much, much easier. The world isn’t always the brightest, happiest place – but it can be.

The world is filled with dark and light; you don’t need to be oblivious to one to thrive in the other. You just need to create a reality for yourself that accepts the world is the way it is and allows you to focus in on those things and individuals who make you happiest.

At the end of the day, you are you and you alone. Create a brighter reality for yourself, and hopefully, it’ll rub off on others.

For More Of His Thoughts And Ramblings, Follow Paul Hudson On Twitter And Facebook.