Learning to Walk Away

Yesterday would have been my grandmother’s  92^nd birthday.  At about 5ft tall, she never held her tongue (whether you wanted her to or not) and she didn’t exactly use nice words (umm, I won’t repeat them here).  When my mom died, I ended up living with her and let me tell you – going from my best friend, never raised her voice, always smiling mom’s house to my stubborn, my way or else, don’t need any help grandmother’s house as a teen was a big shock. It was like night and day! Over time I realized that my grandmother was full of lessons that were different from what my mother taught me.  And you know I am about to give you one, right?

My grandmother lived in a small house in a working class neighborhood. She sometimes talked about having a bigger house one day but she always seemed content with what she had.  (hmm, some of us need to work on being content, but I won’t go there…that’s a freebie…keep reading!)   One day a man and woman came to the house (that was when folks would just show up at your house unannounced…you know, “company”) and offered my grandmother a large sum of money to buy her house. They went on and on about the house being in a changing neighborhood and that now was her chance to leave the neighborhood. It really was a lot of money, enough for her to buy a better house and still have money for a nice savings. Surely, this was her chance. Nope! She completely disregarded their offer. Of course, I tried to convince her to think about it. But she said this:

Everything is not made for everybody.

Huh? What did that have to do with anything?  That money could help her live quite nicely and get her a better house! She continued:

One day you will learn to walk away from things not meant for you.  People may make it seem all good but you have to be careful – that goes for anything, a man, a job, a friend…anything.  Think about it, why would they want my house if they told me it wasn’t good enough for me?

She really was full of wisdom, wasn’t she?  Well long story short, those people were investors looking to buy up as many houses in the neighborhood as they could. Can you imagine what would have happened to the homeowners if they succeeded? I really didn’t truly understand the lesson until last year. I had someone make me a really good offer (I mean a “could change my life” offer, or at least it looked good on the surface).  I almost said yes, but when I thought about it, I wondered why they were so eager to make the offer.   Also, some of the requirements of the offer didn’t quite align with my priorities or values. Sure, it probably would have been temporarily good for me, but after a few months I probably would have been miserable.  So I declined the offer. It was for the best. Turns out my declining that offer, made room for something better.  It was at that moment that I realized that I got it.  I was taking my grandmother’s advice.  I had finally learned to walk away from things not meant for me.

How about you? Are there things (people or situations) that you know you should walk away from?   I can’t tell you what to do, but my hope for you is that one day you too will love the sound of your feet walking away from things that are not meant for you. 🙂