Some Will Never Like You. Let Them.

I have always been an optimist. Stubbornly so.

For most of my life I believed something rather lovely — and, it turns out, rather naive. That everyone could be won over. That if someone resisted me, disliked me, kept me at arm’s length, there had to be a reason. And if there was a reason, then surely it could be understood. And if it could be understood, then surely — with enough logic, enough sincerity, enough patience — it could be undone.

I genuinely believed that.

It took me far longer than I’d like to admit to learn that it simply isn’t true.

Some people will dislike you no matter what you do. Some will never give you a chance — no matter what you do. Some are jealous. Some feel threatened. And some, if we’re being honest, just don’t like your face… and there is no logic in the world that will fix that, because it was never about logic to begin with.

This is not cynicism. That took me a long time to see too. Accepting that not everyone is yours to win is not the death of optimism. It is the maturing of it.

What we teach without thinking

Rowena and I wrote a book about parenting — though “wrote a book” makes it sound far grander than it was. It was really 25 years of getting things wrong, getting a few things right, and disagreeing with each other along the way. We called it Raising Future Adults, because somewhere in the middle of it all we realised that is what the job actually is. You are not raising a child. You are raising the adult that child will one day become.

And here is something I notice we do, almost without thinking, when we raise children.

We teach them to be liked.

Be kind, we say. Share. Smile. Make friends. Sort it out. Say sorry. When they come home wounded — “she said she doesn’t want to be my friend anymore” — our instinct is to fix it. To find the reason. To coach the small, heartbroken person in front of us on how to win the other child back.

We mean well. But we are, quietly, teaching them the very lesson that took me four decades to unlearn — that being disliked is a problem to be solved.

It isn’t. Sometimes it is just… information.

The thing I wish I’d said earlier

What I wish I had told my children far earlier — and what I am only now learning to tell myself — is this.

You will not be everyone’s cup of tea. You shouldn’t be. The people who don’t like you are not a puzzle you’ve failed to crack. Some of them have simply decided, and their decision has very little to do with you. It is about them — their fears, their comparisons, the things they are carrying that you cannot see and certainly cannot fix.

So stop trying to fix it.

Because here is what the chasing actually costs you. Every ounce of energy spent trying to convert the person who will never be convinced is an ounce stolen from the people who already wish you well. And they are there. They have always been there. Quietly in your corner, asking for so little — while you exhausted yourself on the ones who would never clap, no matter how well you danced.

Turn around

Look at the ones who do wish you well.

Appreciate them. Value them. Cherish them. Work with them. Build with them. These are your people — and the great irony is that while you were busy auditioning for the ones who would never hire you, these ones had already given you the part.

Leave the rest. Not with bitterness. Not with a slammed door. Just… leave them. Wish them well, and let them be.

I am still an optimist. Don’t mistake any of this for a hardened heart. I still believe in people. I still believe most can be reached. I still believe sincerity matters more than almost anything else.

I have simply made my peace with the small, stubborn minority who never will be. They get to keep their opinion of me. And I get to keep my peace.

That is a trade I would have taken twenty years ago — if only someone had told me it was on offer.

Everything teaches. But not everyone is yours to win.