Extra Thought: Back-Stabbers

  I've become a fan of Fabolous over the past few years. He's grown as an artist and has started putting out a lot of music that I can get behind.  This growth is shown on his Soul Tape mixtape, as he took a page out of Joe Budden's book and added a lot of real life into the songs.  There were many stand out lines on that mixtape, however, one in particular stood out the most:

"...to know a back-stabber, gotta turn your back to em'"

Support Quality

  A fact of life is that some people will keep their best interests in mind and sell out anybody if it will benefit them in some way, shape, or form.  Being on the receiving end can be very hurtful and upsetting, especially if it was from someone you thought you could trust.  After being betrayed, a natural reaction is to draw back and stop putting so much of yourself out there, stop trusting as many people because with every person you trust, you open yourself up to be let down again.

Don't.

  Life is enhanced by the connections and relationships you develop with others.  Shutting everyone out and becoming a hermit will only make you the next person to hurt you emotionally.  You should learn from this experience, take note of anything that you can use to protect yourself in the future.  However, you'll never be able to prevent this from happening again, that's just how life goes.  Focus on how you share yourself with others, make them earn levels of trust, hold people accountable, be the type of friend that you hope to have.  Like I said, doing this won't prevent you from getting stabbed in the back, but it will strengthen the bonds you have with the people that deserve them, and once you have that, you won't really care when a flake tries to sell you out. At that point, they are just doing you a favor by removing themselves from your life.