a friend or a foe
the dangerous things we mistake for allies
What if some of the things we trust most aren’t actually our friends?
I was taking a stroll last week when this thought struck me and I haven’t been able to take my mind of it since then.
“A FRIEND OR A FOE?”
At first I didn’t even know what I meant, I assumed it was just about people, like bad friends, betrayal etc.
But as I walked home, it kept coming back, and it became less about people and more about ideas. Like things we trust and lean on without even realizing how they’ve started changing us.
I don’t think anything is permanently a friend or a foe. Or perhaps… why are we so bad at telling the difference?
We think our enemies come to us looking dangerous but sometimes they arrive as friends. They make us feel safe and tell us exactly what we want to hear, that’s why it’s hard to recognize.
Confidence was the first thing that came to my mind. While very necessary and needed, feels like a friend that makes you think you can conquer the world, until it starts to tip into arrogance.
Memories… they help us remember sweet moments, people, places and the likes, but they can sometimes distort things, especially the bad ones. What if the story you’ve been living as has changed over time?
Then there’s self-awareness… Uh! Praised so much, but it can slide into self-policing. You end up editing yourself instead of actually living.
How about hope? Beautiful! something we look forward to but yet, it can keep you stuck in a situation that ended years ago.
I can go on and on, because the more I thought about it, the more examples I found, too many actually… but my point is that you should pay attention and notice how things shift with the season you’re in, because the same thing that saved you in a season might sabotage you in another.
I don’t even think friend or foe was ever the right question.
“Fire can warm a home or burn it down. Water can keep you alive or drown you”
I think everything changes depending on the role it’s playing in your life. Maybe don’t rush to label it a friend or a foe. Listen to what it’s actually doing in your life right now. Renegotiate your relationship with it. Is it serving its purpose or has its purpose expired?
With love,
Becky
Good to read you again, Becky. 🤍
That idea of something saving you in one season and sabotaging you in another really stayed with me. I think we can become strangely loyal to the things that once protected us — hyper-awareness, hope, control, even certain ways of remembering — long after the circumstances that made them necessary have changed.
Letting them go can almost feel ungrateful. But perhaps we can thank something for getting us through one version of our life without asking it to govern the next one too.