I knew someone that was all torn up about my having people comment on some of my works as a poet, tearfully saying "everyone loves you as you are."

well, no. 
Not everyone does. 
But Id like to think I appreciate the ones that do. 
And as I got older, my tools for sussing out who didn't got sharper 
or maybe im just a likeable person
or maybe I don't fixate on the parts of the world I cannot please, repair, or save. Maybe there's value in the prayers of serenity I learned in school, even though I'm not really catholic, and maybe never was. 

Or maybe I don't spend my time in ayre trying to drag people down that have found a slightly less awful version of themselves and spend it trying to lift them up.

 Perhaps I'm a little less narcissistic; perhaps I see a world much bigger than me, which in turn makes my demons smaller. Perhaps we re different, and to you that makes life seem unfair whereas to me, that's just life. It's unfair but it keeps coming, and to when we we sink our time like anchors will vary our abilities to escape the riptides of our ego, to stay buoyant in a storm, or in the very least on the really bad days 

to breathe in the water a little more slowly 

I can honestly say I don't fucking miss you.