This song for me brings up all sorts of memories. But most of all, it reminds me of one of the finest lessons I have learned throughout the years. Well, maybe there are two or three. But today I am going out on a limb and talking about something that I haven’t really directly talked about before on this blog, but I think it is incredibly important and shouldn’t be missed. Everyone has lost someone they love, whether it was clean or a dirty break, and this quickly becomes one of the most emotionally consuming events out there. But what I want to talk about today is not about what specifically happens that causes people to break, but you…after it ends.

It is really easy to be bitter and upset. It’s easy to focus on the negatives, discard all the positives, and start trashing the other person because you are hurt and you are building some incredible defense mechanisms. I’ve been there. I’ve done it. And, I’ve felt like crap after. Even if you just listen to yourself talking poorly about someone who 5 minutes, you couldn’t even imagine how you got to that point when just a little while ago you were completely into them. I understand, some people do some terrible things, and I have been on the opposite end of them…and yes there is a line where you need to start respecting yourself and not put up with certain things. But, and this is major, you need to find a way to move on…and how the hell do you do this?

Who are you? Really? Who are you?

If you know who you are and what you stand for…this comes a lot easier. When I was going through the worst of the worst…I had no idea what I stood for. What was even worse was that I found out that what I thought I stood for was total baloney. Yikes. Talk about your ultimate backfire. So the decision was to start implementing into my life characteristics of the person I wanted to become. I listed out my heroes, took the best of the best of characteristics from them, and went to work on those every single day. Lincoln taught me drive and purity of purpose, Plitt taught me to build my mind and my body, Roosevelt taught me to be the man in the arena and not focus on the critics, Churchill taught me to never never never give in, Robinson taught me to work harder even when people spit on you and to endure…the list goes on. But at the beginning, and I want to stress this, I didn’t know who I was. I was lost. I was broken. And I had absolutely no idea where I was going. But I started. I took that step. Here I am now.

You are going to get your heart-broken, stepped on, smashed up, lit on fire….I will stop there haha. But, there is something that counteracts all of the pain and confusion in you. Love. You may hate, or feel like you hate…but give yourself the gift of knowing that you care about the other person no matter what happened. Because the truth is, you do. You will have an internal conflict about whether you care or don’t give a damn about them, but if you decide that you care, you will act much better. You won’t trash talk, you won’t disrespect them, you won’t act maliciously…you will just be there to deal with your pain…and not deliver any more pain onto the other person. Don’t be that person who gets broken up with and then spreads smack about the other…it just makes you worse, and in the end, it says more about you then it does about them. My rule is “If I loved them enough to be with them, I loved them enough to let them be without me.” Which basically means, they don’t have to worry about me talking behind their backs.

I’ve said it many times before. The only thing that matters…is the sound beating inside your chest. It’ll tell you what’s right. Next time something happens, decide to let the heart speak and not let hate or fear lash out. They just destroy things. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. Don’t be afraid to let people know you are hurt…but don’t take your pain and make it someone elses. No one deserves that. Instead, decide to take it day by day, act in harmony with what you believe in, and at the end, you will be smiling. If you go the other route, you will still be harping on things that happened years ago. The choice is yours 🙂

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project