After reading the book “How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World“, I came across this letter that the author wrote to his daughter in 1966. I’ve included some excerpts below:
…If I could give you just one thing, I’d want it to be a simple truth that took me many years to learn. If you learn it now, it may enrich your life in hundreds of ways. And it may prevent you from facing many problems that have hurt people who have never learned it.
The truth is simply this: No one owes you anything.
…no one owes you happiness or anything else
…no one has to love you.
…When people do things for you, it’s because they want to – because you, in some way, give them something meaningful that makes them want to please you…
…no one has to like you…
…no one has to respect you.
…some people may even be unkind to you….you’ll learn to avoid those who would harm you. For you don’t owe them anything either…
…you owe it to yourself to be the best person possible. Because if you are, others will want to be with you, want to provide you with the things you want in exchange for what you’re giving to them.
…some people will choose not to be with you for reasons that have nothing to do with you…look elsewhere for the relationships you want.
…no one owes me moral conduct, respect, friendship, love, courtesy, or intelligence. And once I recognized that, all my relationships became far more satisfying. I’ve focused on being with people who want to do the things I want them to do.
…save the important relationships for those with whom I have the most in common.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. I learned this lesson at work, after being fired (or laid off) from yet another job where I’d given 150%, spent many hours in unpaid overtime, and carried my work home with me for years. I wrote about it less eloquently than Harry Browne.
It took me longer to fully apply this principle in my personal relationships. In some cases, I’m still learning to apply it today.
When I think about my relationships with current and former friends, family, colleagues and romantic partners, I can see times where I applied this successfully. When I did, I felt autonomous, impervious and self-confident.
There were plenty of other times where I felt let down that I was owed something and it was not received. My righteous indignation and self-pity pulled me down much further than the missing “reward” I had expected to receive.
In my recent Contact Purge, I used this technique to identify the people I still am close to and deleting the rest.
It’s been freeing.