The weekend is upon us yet again. Congratulations to us for holding on and making it through another week. More importantly, there’s a guy you owe this to. You probably know him as the American Industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company. If you are an ardent student of history, you may also know about his role in revolutionizing factory production with his assembly line methods. The man Henry Ford is the guy you mostly owe your weekend to. Much as it is increasingly proving to be insufficient time for us, the two-day weekend is less than 100 years old. Ford was a great contributor as he began giving his workers a two-day weekend in the 1900s. It was only until the late 1930s that the American begun limiting companies to a 40- hour work week.

This seemingly humane move by Mr. Ford was altruistic in true human fashion. It was borne out of the realization that the economy gets a boost if the workers get a coupler of days off to purchase goods and enjoy their use. Being a manufacturer of cars himself, Henry Ford realized that his workers were some of his best customers. If he wanted to keep selling cars to them, it was imperative for him to give them time off for them to drive and enjoy those cars. So go ye into the weekend with the knowledge that this is a scheme made precisely to facilitate that overspending (or simply spending) that you are looking forward to. Whether you shall be found weekending outside, being a present mum to your barely living plants or furnishing and decorating your house that you intend to spend all weekend in, keep that money circulating through the economy.

My lecture on the weekend shall be as brief as the subject itself. What I intend to dwell on is probably the last thing you want to think about on a Friday afternoon, but I think it’s time we had this talk. Let us deny those fake deep tweeps the chance to drop this topic and follow it up with the idea that we are not ready for that conversation. Welcome to my Ted talk (when will Ted ever talk though?). For my diligent learners occupying the front seats and taking notes, write it down;

TOXICOLOGY 101

So you shall be spending time away from your friends because you are on a levelling up journey? Or did you outgrow your friends who shall secretly miss? I know, you cut your other friends off and shall be spending time with the new cool group you barely fit in but who not only tolerate but also encourage everything you do. Before you feel attacked, this is not an attack on anybody’s levelling up journey. What it is, is a deeper look at what we have turned said journeys into. What ought to be a positive move aimed at self-growth has morphed into an avenue to channel our most toxic beliefs coated so beautifully.

The world, sadly, does not revolve around you and your levelling up journey. This is why everybody around you whether friends or family are not as obsessed as you would wish they were about the journey you are on. Much as they celebrate and love it for you, people around you will most likely not be in the same journey or subscribe to your version of levelling up. The most important question then would be whether we actually need to surround ourselves with people who have the exact interests as we do and who share our line of thought.

The world and social media today are pitching us up against those who actually care about us. I am convicted that you do not need to have friends with your exact interests. As a matter of fact, each human being at their core is so unique and this will always be manifested as long as they remain authentic to who they are. What holds friendship together is the genuine love and affection for each other which gives room for accommodation of all differences that exist in personalities and opinions.

I hope by now that you are beginning to look back at your inspiration for cutting off friends, whether you actually did it, intend to or just perceived it. While it is a reality to outgrow people, it is often a manifestation of our pride. This pride stems from a twisted narcissistic belief that not only are we the center of our own lives but also of other people’s lives. Cutting off people perceived as enemies around us makes us feel better than them. This is the version of cutting off people that I am opposed to as it turns our entire healing and growing journey into a badge of pride.

Just today, I stumbled upon a tweet that called out the idea that once you fall out or have a break up, the other person ‘fumbled you’. The trajectory of their entire lives will not necessarily fall off the rails just because you are no longer in their life. It is this exaggerated sense of self-importance that turns a journey of finding and growing into our best versions into a narcissistic toxic one.

We sink deeper into the bog when we get into the reasons why we cut off our friends. Do your friends become toxic when they call you out on your bad habits or simply fail to agree with everything you do? I believe it’s high time we gave our platonic friendships the same grace we extend to romantic relationships (Louder for the girlies at the back). Your friends are bound to disappoint you, fail you and make mistakes as long as they remain human. Our skewed understanding sense of human relationships has led us to be more inclined to throw the baby out with the bath water when the inevitable happens. There seems to be no room for error or worse forgiveness. Our obsession with having perfect relationships void of disagreements or conflict is unattainable and the sooner we make peace with this, the better for us all.

Wanjiku’s take is simple. Human interactions and relationships cannot be void of conflict. As a matter of fact, conflict could also arise in your own relationship with yourself without any external factors. The need to have seamless relations where we escape the responsibility of handling conflict as and when it arises is utopic. Real growth and levelling up shall be indicated by your ability to accommodate different views from your own, handle conflict to maintain relations and to do the strong act of forgiving those who wrong us.