How do you want to live your life?

How, always, the journey is the destination.

How, so often, we feel a sense of ownership towards the people in our lives. For example, if person A deeply hurts or wrongs us, we expect everyone we are close to to take “our side” and turn away from person A. We expect that everyone will see how horrible person A is, how good and right we are. And if those people we are connected to do not turn away from person A, we are hurt and upset, thinking “you should not like/be with anyone who has wronged or deeply hurt me.”

But loyalty is different from ownership. We can’t control other people. We can’t expect them to act in our best interests, only in their own…and it may be that remaining close to person A is in someone else’s best interests. We have to give up the idea of owning, of controlling another person. Instead, we have to take responsibility for the only person whose actions we can control: ourself. We must practice detachment and let go; we must not get so “hooked” by person A’s wronging and by the relationship other people we are close to may have with person A that these actions of others continue to affect us. And, by being careful with the people we allow into our lives–and how far we allow different people in–we can spare ourselves the pain of being betrayed or wronged by the people we know. We can spare ourselves the pain of ownership afterwards.

How it is always the same, but always different.