Imagine having your own sports team or being the captain of one. You pick your favorite player every time you make the line-up. Even if they aren’t the best in someone else’s eyes, there will never be anybody better in your own. You constantly pick them as your starting player. All the plays end with them. Now imagine they have a team. The teams are picked; the line-up is made, and you didn’t make it. Not only did you not make it, but you couldn’t even buy a ticket to the game.

Because you care about them and want to watch their success you’re patient; you start by watching them from the TV. Then, you start trying harder to get an entry into the game no matter what it takes. Sometimes you get mad and think about trying out for another team, but you know deep down it’s not where you truly want to be. You silently still cheer for their every move, and hope they make the best decisions. You root for them even when they don’t pick you.

Sometimes we get hurt over and over again because we continue to give whatever we have to get into the same game, on the team we wish we were chosen to be a part of. Sometimes they even make us think we have a chance. They’ll tell us how good we are, and how we need to join their team, but we have to watch as they hand a jersey to someone else. We wait until they have an injured player, and they call needing us. We watch day after day as they pick someone else hoping one day, they will pick us first like we would do for them each time.

Truth be told, it’s time to stop trying to get in their game. Not allowing someone to come and go out of your life doesn’t always mean holding a grudge against them. It’s learning to save yourself emotionally one step at a time. It’s having peace with the fact that once you realize you are better than second pick, you have the ability to quietly wish them the best and forget about trying to get a pass into their life. You might go back to watching their life as it unfolds or checking up on them periodically, but then, ever so slowly, you will start to care less and less about their game and more about your own.

I hope today you will all start choosing to care more about the people who treat you like their favorite player.