Insights

There is a significant difference between being valued for who you are and being valued for what you have.

Some people are drawn to your success, your resources, your connections, your generosity, your influence, or simply the benefits that come from being close to you. They may enjoy your presence, but the more important question is whether they would still choose that presence if the advantages disappeared.

This can be difficult to recognise because appreciation can look remarkably similar to affection. People may praise you, seek your company, and make you feel important, while their real attachment is directed toward what you provide rather than the person you are.

The truth often reveals itself when circumstances change. When the money disappears, the opportunities end, the connections are no longer useful, or the generosity stops, some relationships begin to change with them.

That is when an uncomfortable question emerges: were they attached to you, or to their experience of you?

Being valued for what you have can feel flattering, but it can also become exhausting. You may constantly feel responsible for maintaining the very thing that keeps people interested.

Perhaps genuine connection is revealed when there is nothing left to gain, yet someone still chooses to stay.

The real test is simple: when what you have changes, who remains?

Thought-provoking reflections on life, identity and relationships, written in the style of a modern-day Socratic journal and told through poetic paradoxes and emotional honesty.

by Paul Strydom.

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Read, reflect, agree, disagree, or just see things differently.