EVERYBODY AROUND YOU DOESN’T HAVE A SOUL...

THE PEOPLE WE THINK WE KNOW There comes a point in life when you have to stop judging people simply by how long you’ve known them and start paying attention to what they actually bring into your life. Familiarity can fool you, history can fool you, and even family ties can fool you when emotional attachment causes you to overlook what’s happening right in front of you. Sometimes the person standing closest to you isn’t necessarily walking in the same direction you’re walking, and sometimes the person you believe understands you may only understand the version of you that they’ve become accustomed to seeing. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again because I believe it’s something people need to seriously think about: everybody around you doesn’t have a soul in the sense that you may understand the word. I’m not talking about whether someone has a physical body, a personality, a job, a family, or a social life. I’m talking about what’s happening inside of them, including their sense of purpose, conscience, spiritual awareness, discipline, compassion, and willingness to rise above the lowest parts of human behavior. A person can be physically alive while being completely disconnected from the deeper purpose that gives life meaning. That’s what I mean when I talk about the hollows. A hollow can look completely normal from the outside because they can laugh with you, eat with you, work with you, socialize with you, and even call themselves your friend. Yet underneath that appearance, there can be a tremendous emptiness, with no real desire to grow, no desire to become wiser, and no desire to develop beyond satisfying the immediate demands of the flesh. They can become comfortable simply eating, sleeping, indulging, reproducing, entertaining themselves, and repeating the same cycle without ever asking whether life has something greater waiting for them. The danger begins when someone carrying that kind of emptiness gets close to somebody who actually has vision and purpose. When you have purpose, you can naturally become uncomfortable to people who have become comfortable with having none. Your growth reminds them of what they aren’t doing, your discipline reminds them of their lack of discipline, and your spiritual development can remind them of the places inside themselves they have refused to examine. Sometimes your very existence becomes an uncomfortable mirror because your progress forces them to see possibilities in themselves that they have chosen not to pursue. That’s why I want to explore this idea of the hollow, because life has a strange way of revealing what’s really inside people. You can walk with someone for twenty years and still not fully understand what they’re carrying inside, but eventually circumstances come along and stir everything up. It’s like putting chocolate powder into a glass of milk and leaving it sitting at the bottom. From a distance, somebody might think they’re simply looking at a glass of milk, but once that glass gets stirred, everything that was hidden beneath the surface suddenly becomes visible. CIRCUMSTANCES REVEAL WHAT’S INSIDE That’s one of the great lessons of human relationships because you don’t always discover someone’s character during peaceful times. Sometimes you discover it when money gets involved, sometimes you discover it when jealousy appears, sometimes you discover it when somebody else succeeds, and sometimes you discover it when temptation walks through the door. You can also discover it when you need help or when you finally decide to change your life, because the moment your behavior changes, the people around you are forced to respond to a version of you they may not have expected to see. A person can tell you they love you while their behavior tells you something completely different. Somebody can say they want the best for you while constantly encouraging the very behaviors that are destroying you, and they can laugh with you while secretly enjoying your downfall. They can encourage your weaknesses because your weaknesses make them feel comfortable around you, and when you’re struggling, they may feel powerful because your confusion gives them a position of influence they might not have if you were standing firmly on your own two feet. That’s where things become dangerous because the hollow doesn’t necessarily have to attack you directly. Sometimes all they have to do is encourage you to attack yourself. They may know that you have a weakness for alcohol, and instead of helping you control it, they’re always ready to pour another drink. They may know that you struggle with sexual temptation, and instead of encouraging discipline, they continually push you toward situations that feed those impulses. They may know exactly where your weaknesses are because you trusted them enough to tell them, and instead of protecting that information, they use their knowledge of you to keep you trapped inside the very behavior you’re trying to overcome. Eventually, consequences arrive, and that’s when the relationship can become even more revealing. You may lose money, damage your reputation, destroy an opportunity, damage a relationship, create an unwanted pregnancy, contract an infection, lose your focus, or create problems that follow you for years. Meanwhile, the same person who helped push you toward the edge may be standing somewhere laughing about what happened, telling stories about your mistakes as though your pain was nothing more than entertainment. That’s not friendship, and that’s not genuine concern for your well-being. When somebody repeatedly studies your weaknesses, feeds those weaknesses, encourages you to continue destructive behavior, and then takes pleasure when those weaknesses produce suffering, you have to stop calling that relationship something it isn’t. Human beings make mistakes, and sometimes people encourage things without understanding the consequences, but repeated behavior reveals a different kind of intention because there comes a point when ignorance can no longer explain the pattern. WHEN YOUR WEAKNESS BECOMES THEIR ENTERTAINMENT There’s something deeply disturbing about people who enjoy watching someone with enormous potential become a reduced version of themselves. They may recognize your intelligence, your talent, your creativity, your ability to build, and even your spiritual potential, but instead of encouraging you to develop those qualities, they look for ways to keep you distracted. They want you chasing temporary pleasure instead of building something lasting, arguing instead of creating, consuming instead of producing, reacting instead of thinking, and remaining emotionally unstable instead of becoming centered and disciplined. That’s because a person who discovers their purpose becomes much harder to control. When you become disciplined, you become less dependent on outside approval. When you become spiritually grounded, you become less desperate for acceptance. When you understand your weaknesses, you become harder to manipulate through those weaknesses, and when you learn to say no, people who benefited from your lack of boundaries may suddenly become angry with you because your boundaries have changed the relationship they once controlled. That’s when you find out who was actually attached to you and who was attached to the version of you they could influence. Some people don’t miss you when you leave; they miss the access they had to you. Some people don’t miss your presence; they miss the opportunities your lack of boundaries gave them. Some people don’t miss your friendship; they miss having somebody nearby whose weaknesses made them feel better about their own lives. The hollow doesn’t necessarily want to destroy you in some dramatic way. Sometimes they simply want you diminished, distracted, confused, addicted, angry, sexually reckless, financially irresponsible, emotionally unstable, or constantly trapped in the same problems. They may want you functioning below yo… Get full access to LanceScurvX at www.lancescurvx.com/subscribe