We don’t think about time the way we should. Most of us hand it out like we’ve got an unlimited supply, to people who drain us, distract us, or simply don’t earn the right to sit in the front row of our lives. And men are especially guilty of this. We take on responsibilities we were never asked to carry, give energy we don’t have, and let people influence our mood, our direction, even our sense of worth, despite them having no real place in our world.

 

But here’s the truth, spoken plainly: not everyone deserves your time.
And the sooner you understand that, the sooner your life starts to make sense again.

Research into men’s wellbeing often highlights something we rarely acknowledge, our emotional bandwidth is limited. We’re told to be dependable, strong, available, steady… but all of that comes at a cost. When we invest ourselves in people who don’t give anything back, we run empty. When we care too much about the opinions of people who barely know us, we shrink. And when we stretch ourselves across too many connections, we lose the ability to really enjoy the ones that matter.

 

I learned this the hard way. For years, I said yes to everyone. If someone needed my time, I handed it over. If someone wanted my attention, they got it. I listened to opinions from people whose significance in my life should have been next to nothing, yet those opinions still had the power to shape me. It was a mess, and I didn’t even realise it.

Sobriety changed a lot for me, but what it really gave me was clarity. I started noticing the people who fed me strength instead of stress. I started recognising who genuinely cared, who poured back into me, who wanted me to grow. And just as important, I realised who didn’t. Suddenly, the hierarchy became obvious. At the top: the people who deserved more of my time, more of my energy, more of my attention. As you go further down that list, the investment drops, not out of cruelty, but out of necessity. You simply can’t give everything to everyone.

 

When you stop chasing approval from people with minimal relevance in your life, something freeing happens. You start enjoying the people closest to you more. You uncover dreams you’d buried. You lose the shame attached to old comparisons. And your world becomes calmer, safer, stronger. Your circle becomes smaller, yes, but it becomes powerful. Supportive. Empathetic. A place you actually want to be.

And that’s when you realise the real point:
you’re not meant to impress everyone, you’re meant to be happy.

 

So the lesson is simple. Your time is precious. Protect it. Give more of yourself to the few who genuinely matter, and loosen your grip on the rest. You’ll be amazed at how quickly your life changes when you stop pouring into people who were never meant to shape your future.

 

The challenge for today: choose one person you’ll give a little more energy to, and one person you’ll stop giving so much power. You’ll feel the shift almost immediately.

“Protect your circle, and your circle will protect you.”

Tom Gosling 4/12/25