Last week, I was catching up with my colleague who was wrestling with a major life decision.

A major move. New city. New friendships to build.

“I’m terrified of starting over again,” she said. “It takes years to build the kind of friendships where people really know you. Where they care enough to fight for you and challenge you.”

The exhaustion of explaining yourself to new people. Of slowly building trust. Of hoping someone will see you clearly enough to challenge you when you’re being stupid. (I went through that last year, up til this moment)

I asked her.

“What’s more important to you - being a good friend or having good friends?”

She paused for a sweet moment.

Her answer came quickly, but not reactively: “Being a good friend.”

She’d already been living that truth. The question just helped her see it clearly.

You can only control being a good friend. The rest is up to them.

When you’re grounded in who you are as a person - when you know you’ll show up with integrity regardless of where you go - something changes.

You stop wasting energy chasing other people’s energy.

Independence becomes a natural consequence of being rooted in your own values.

This applies to everything you care about:

• You can control your work ethic. You can’t control recognition.
• You can control your honesty. You can’t control if the other trusts you.
• You can control your consistency. You can’t control results.

Result is important, AND you need to know what you stand for.

Being first, then result will come.

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I'm sharing this story as I am now entering a rather different phase.

Two months ago, my dear guy friend Stephen told me “You know, you have become a lot more high agency recently”.

I felt seen.

New job, new country, new level of challenge.

New everything.

I’m reclaiming my life, one move at a time after a period of drifting.

In those dark moments, I learned that

1) nobody is coming to save me and

2) everyone wants to help.

And it felt good to reclaim my agency AND also open myself to be supported by the world.

I wish you are the same way.

Keep going, you are on the right path.

Khuyen

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