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Circumstance may test the self, but it does not create it. I’ve come to believe that very deeply. We all go through things that are unfair, unexpected, sometimes even cruel. Life has a strange way of shaking us up – through heartbreaks, unfair trials, betrayals, health scares, losses, or just the slow poison of monotony. But whatever the world throws at us, the choice of who we become through it all… is still ours. That’s the hard truth. And also, a liberating truth.
See, the world will always try to bend you – not always with cruelty, sometimes with a smile. People will surround you claiming to be friends, mentors, well-wishers. People will project their fears onto you, test your patience, question your worth, tempt you to change for comfort or validation.. They’ll wrap it up as advice, concern, or experience, and if you’re not rooted in your own clarity, you’ll start shaping yourself around their limitations. And here’s the brutal truth: if your values shift just because someone else questions them, then you were never really standing in them to begin with. That’s not growth – that’s weakness dressed as flexibility.
Staying true to yourself, your choices and your values aren’t about stubbornness. It’s about remembering what matters when things fall apart. I’ve been through my own share of difficult seasons – moments that shook my confidence to the bone, people who misunderstood or misused my intentions, paths that collapsed when I thought I was finally getting somewhere. It was tempting, in those times, to bend, to give in, to rewrite myself just to feel some peace. But despite it all, I’ve remained the same person at the core. And now, no matter what comes next – no matter how turbulent, slow, or unfair – I’d say, bring it on.
If you give up what you believe in just to fit in, feel safe, or be liked, you’re not evolving – you’re just a scumbag in disguise, ready to sell your soul for approval. A people pleaser. But when you break – if you break – don’t you dare blame the world. Blame the hollowness in your spine, the looseness in your principles, the parts of you that were already prepared to fall apart. The storm doesn’t invent weakness. It just exposes it.
Your values aren’t real if they vanish when life gets tough. Kindness that’s only shown in comfort is performance. Loyalty that disappears in conflict is convenience. And strength that caves at the first sign of pain is just noise.
You don’t have to be perfect. But if you can look in the mirror after life has chewed you up and say, “I didnt sell myself short,” that’s a kind of peace no one can fake. If you’ve been through turbulences and have remained the same person at your core, you’re a real soul, in the midst of phony, fake faces. You are indeed a real one in a sea of emojis.
You are not what happens to you. You are what you choose to be, especially when it happens.
