You should not always have your hands stuck out begging. At some point, you should have something to offer to someone else. When people give to you, learn how to give back to them. People will start to hate seeing you come around them because they know you will have something that you want them to do for you. Do you have people in your life who only call, email, text, and/or visit you when they want something from you and you never hear from them until they want something? Today, I want to let you know they are leeches. If you continue to feed leeches, they will zap all of the blood out of you. You may not understand what’s going on with how you feel, why things are not going right in your life, why it seems that you don’t have enough time in the day, and/or why you are not able to meet your daily responsibilities. You need to check for leeches in your life. Leeches could be the very reason you are not progressing, improving, and/or feeling the way that you long to feel.
Don’t be so compassionate that you allow people to crumble your foundation. You have to be wise in your giving. Always examine your giving and make sure that you are giving to the right people and places. You are not the savior of the world, so don’t attempt to help too many people because you will be denying yourself from the great things that you need to enjoy for yourself. Helping too many people on your own is simply not healthy and not wise. You will physically, mentally, and emotionally weigh yourself down with stress when you are trying to help everyone. When you need some help, watch how many of those people who you helped will be there for you.
People will hang around you and contact you just to get benefits from you. Now, this can be expected from the complete strangers you may help or the random people you meet, but it’s those friends and family members you have to be more alert about being leeches. Leeches are not always easy to detect. We allow friends and family members to occupy certain spaces in our life that we don’t allow others to occupy. This is the reason why we have to have on more protective clothing when we are around our friends and family—they could be the greatest leeches we have on us. If you are always thoroughly examining yourself, then you will know if your friends and family members are leeches.
We often make ourselves too vulnerable to people who we believe love us and have our best interest in mind. You need to understand that you need to constantly assess those who you make yourself vulnerable to in some way. It can be the venomous people around you who are killing you and pushing you off of your road to greatness. The people who you love and trust can be the very people who are simply using you for what they can get from you. You cannot sit there and allow folks to suck all of the blood out of you and not have enough left for yourself.
I know that it might be difficult to think about your loved ones being leeches, but you have to be willing to examine them as potential leeches. Guard yourself in wise ways. Build necessary walls with certain people in your life. We hear a significant amount of discourse about tearing down walls, but there needs to be more discussion about building necessary walls. Walls exist for a purpose: to make sure that not just anyone can enter.
Beware of the leeches out there—they might be some people you least expect! If you are consciously a leech, stop being one today!
Antonio Maurice Daniels
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Revolutionary Paideia 
I couldn’t get pass the picture……yuck. Parasites and leeches will suck you dry.
LOL! They sure will! Lol.
That photo is really creeping me out. I’scared…
I’ve had to learn not to feed people who just suck the life out of me. I find myself doing and doing and just allowing them to do that, suck my dry. I had to learn over the years. Nothing wrong with helping those who help themselves. I had “friends” in college who would just want to hang out and go places with me. They just cared about getting in the club, where the hot parties/house parties where -maybe I should just call them social climbers. I hate them too. It’s a way to ask and get things done without being a leech.
I think I do pretty good LOL
Lol! Don’t be scared of that picture. Yes, there’s a way to get things done without being a leech. I love your use of “social climbers.” People will try to ride your coat tail right to the top, which is not a bad thing in itself, but it’s the ones who are just leeching off you the whole way that are most damaging and the ones who need to be avoided and dismissed. Lol @ “I think I do pretty good.” Thanks for reading and your response, Drew!
Excellent post and needed. I was happy to see the title of this post and I am in need of reading every word of it. Leech is one of my four pet peeves (liars, late, and laziness) that makes the right eye twitch. It is one thing to actually be in need of assistance from people, but it is another when you “always have your hand out” and your lazy ass is doing nothing to improve the quality of your life. Great, now I’m upset. LOL! Necessary walls are critical to life and building an attitude that deciphers who is a leech and who is literally in need.
Lol! Thanks, Pampered Sweet Tooth! I agree that we have to be able to discern who is literally in need. Very good response.
Dope as visual of a pic….
But the idea of leeches goes even deeper if you are talking about you being the breadwinner. Its nothing wrong with people are leeching when you are the king and the other leeches or pieces are protecting you. Sad part is everyday folks aren’t understanding how to protect the KING…
In the example that you have given, I’m not sure that’s leeching, however. Your example sounds more like an agreed upon system where everyone involved is mutually benefiting. I’m not sure of an example where the true traditional notion of leeching is a positive and sustainable phenomenon.