If someone is disrespecting you, and he or she is pulling out every stop in order to bring you down. They’re attacking your race, your character, your religion, your gender, your age, the way your hair looks, your clothing. You have to stop and ask yourself one question: is this person okay?
Does this person actually have any respect to share with another person if that is the way he or she decides to argue? Especially with a stranger?
The answer would be a hard, fast, and clear “no”.
People who go for the low blows aren’t healthy. In 2026 we have to start coming to accept that the racist people aren’t the best and brightest in their class. Even if they were student body president. Even if they earned high SAT scores. If their best defense was calling you names, they didn’t have the maturity or wisdom to win anything based on merit, honor, or integrity.
Nobody peaks in high school. That’s not really a thing. You can’t peak at 18 or younger. Kids don’t peak. Winning in high school means who becomes the biggest celebrity.
But people who actually care about winning don’t care about fame unless it’s meaningful. What can you do with fame at 18 that you can’t do at 30?
N O T H I N G
Every birthday brings you closer to the things that truly matter in life. Wisdom. Peace. Prosperity. Relationships where you’re actually respected and you can settle into feeling appreciated for who you really are.
You also have to think about yourself on the other side of those interactions. If someone can turn you against an entire group of people based on skin color because one called you a “nigger”, how much resilience do you really have? If you let hate turn you into an even bigger hater, what makes you better than the person who attacked you? Eventually, you become just like them. Unless you don’t let the bitterness consume you.
Most people do, though. Most people let bitterness turn them into a mirror image of the people they hate. And they don’t see it because they are blinded to it.
The most annoying thing about people who try to ‘educate’ you in order to make you less ignorant? What if their education turns out to be wrong. Unfactual. Incorrect. Based on emotions and desires rather than reality as it stands for all people?
What if you learn one thing over here in a vacuum, and then when you go out to experience the world you realize it wasn’t the whole story? What happens when you try to go back to the fishbowl? It doesn’t work. The information that you have to share from your experience isn’t respected, because you weren’t dealing with people who wanted to learn in the first place. They just wanted to teach. To control.
Who gets to decide who is successful in a system and who isn’t? Is it always entirely up to you and your choices, or are there other people who have a say who don’t want to see you succeed?
Well…the answer is that it depends on the system. It depends on the people defending it. And it does depend on you. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, you can become the person who chooses. Do I want to fit into a system that clearly doesn’t want me here, or do I want to become someone who has options?
Do I want to choose which system I become a part of and what I contribute within it?
When you leave high school you come to learn that every work environment is just a recreation of another high school-like system.
Is every high school the same?
No, it’s not. Not really. Because the people who run it are different from one another.
Maybe when classes are being taught by robots, and the office staff is all AI, and every time you have a question you don’t get an answer unless it’s actually part of the curriculum, THEN every high school will be the same. When robots are raising humans, everything will be standardized and predictably frustrating. Predictably boring. Predictably empty public school hallways, hopefully.
For today’s post on Purpose, I want you to bring to mind every insulting thing you’ve ever experienced.
Whether it was from a teacher, a classmate, a coworker, a boss, a customer service representative, a stranger on the street, a parent, a friend, a sibling, a family member. Whether it came from someone close to you, someone you had never met, or somewhere in between, I want you to bring forward these things:
- Who insulted you
- What the context was – the situation that brought it on, where you were, what happened before it happened
- What the insult was
- Why it bothered you so much
- How it made you feel
- How you responded to it
Why does all of this matter?
We learn a lot about ourselves in moments of adversity. If we want to gain wisdom and grow, we have to be willing to examine. Situations like these contain gold if we are willing to work to find it.
Where is the gold?
The gold is in discovering 1) the situation didn’t kill you. You’re still here.
2) you can give yourself credit for the way you reacted.
3) how you are actually stronger than the person who was trying to drag you down or take you down a peg.
4) what you can cultivate within yourself from that experience that will help you stand taller.
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