Best Life Advice, courtesy of Madea:
Sonny: What am I supposed to do now?
Madea: Get up and go on with your life. It’s all right to sit around and be depressed for a minute. Cry about it. Do whatever you have to do, but don’t stay there too long. Get up and go on with your life.
This is what I’ve learned in all these years on this earth. If somebody wants to walk out of your life, Let. Them. Go. Especially if you know you’ve done everything you can do. If you’ve sat around and been the best man or the best woman you can be and they still want to go, let them go. Whatever they’re running after, they’ll see what they had in a minute, but by then it’s gonna be too late.
Cause you’ll sit there and you go, cause half these people you’ll be sitting around crying about and worrying about, two or three years from now you ain’t even gonna remember their last name. How many times you done seen folks and you’ll be like, “What the hell was I thinking? …What was wrong with me?.. I must have been lonely as hell to hook up with you!”
Let folks go, Sonny. Some people come into your life for a lifetime. Some come for a season. You’ve got to know which is which. And you’re gonna always mess up when you mix seasonal people up with lifetime expectations.
They got people that got married with people they was only supposed to be with for a season and they got married to people they were only supposed to be with for a season and wondering why they have so much hell in their life. That was a person that was only supposed to teach you one thing. You didn’t know it so you just fell in love and now you wondering why you ain’t got no peace nowhere you go.
No, no, listen I put everybody that comes into my life in the category of a tree. Some people are like leaves on a tree. The wind blows — they’re over here. They’re unstable. It blows the other way — now they’re over here. The season changes. They wither and die. They’re gone. It’s alright. Some people, most people in the world are like that. They’re just there to take from the tree. They ain’t there to do nothing but take and give shade every now and then. That’s all they can do. But don’t get mad if people are like that. That’s who they are. That’s what they were put on this earth to be what they are, a leaf.
Some people are like a branch on that tree. You’ve got to be careful about them branches too cause they’ll fool you. They’ll make you think they’re a good friend and they’re real strong, but the minute you step out there on them they’ll break and leave you high and dry.
But if you find two or three people in your life that are like the roots at the bottom of that tree, you are blessed. Because they’re the kind of people that ain’t going nowhere. They ain’t worried about being seen. Don’t nobody have to know what they’re doing for you but if those roots weren’t there that tree couldn’t live. You understand? A tree could have a hundred million branches, but only a few roots down at the bottom to make sure it gets everything it needs. I’m telling you, Sonny, when you get you some roots hold on to them, but the rest of ‘em, let ‘em go. Just let it go. Let folks go.
Sonny: Aunt Madea, it’s not always that easy.
Madea: Ain’t nobody said it was gonna be easy, but it’ll get easier when you learn how to love yourself. When you get to a point in your life when you look at people and you go “Okay, wait a minute. You or me.” You WILL make a decision.
Cause when you telling folks to do something, and I never throw nobody away. I’ve never in my life just thrown somebody away. “Look, don’t bother me no more. Don’t talk to me.” I’ve never done that. What I do is I tell ‘em, “Look, this thing you’re doing right but here, that’s gonna cause a problem. You need to fix that cause if we’re gonna be friends, if we’re gonna be cool, you gotta fix that. And if you don’t, we’re gonna have an issue.”
If you see somebody fix it or they’re even trying to fix it, that’s somebody that cares. Keep them people around. That’s a leaf that’s trying to grow up and be something else. You understand? But if you tell somebody, what you’re doing is hurting me and I need you to stop it and they keep doing it, they don’t care. Move on. Let ‘em go. No matter how much it hurts, let ‘em go.
And it’ll get easier. I promise you. Every day it’ll get easier and easier and easier, but you just gotta make it through.
You hear me Sonny? You gotta learn to be by yourself. People have to learn how to be alone. I don’t understand all these people. Oh I need somebody. Lord, where’s my man? Lord, where’s my woman? That is crazy as hell. If you don’t know how to be by yourself, what are you gonna do with somebody else? Stop praying about it! Shut up and wait! Go work on YOU. Hell, that’s what that time is for, to get yourself together.
I’d rather be in a corner by myself with a puppy and a goldfish and be happy than be sitting around with somebody up in my house and I’m wondering what the hell they’re there for.
You would be surprised the things that people put up with just to have somebody to say they love them. That’s crazy. I don’t understand it. I can’t live in dysfunction. I’m sorry. I’ve been through too much, been through too much hell and high water to come there and let you come up in my adult life when I’m supposed to be at peace and give me all kinds of hell. Only two places on this earth you’re gonna have peace, your grave and your house. Now if you wake up in your house and you’ve got no peace something is wrong. Something is wrong I’m sorry.
