How important are the people you surround yourself with? Can merely having certain people around you bring you down? (guilty, person)
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Recently, I've been reorganizing my life and looking at it from an honest perspective. Simply put, the majority of my friends are lazy, negative, and "blame everyone else" type people. I seem to chronically sell myself short in areas of friendship and relationship and I tend to gravitate to people who are either always negative, lazy, or angry -OR- just all around low quality people. This may have to do with the fact I suffered from chronically low self-esteem for most of my life.
Recently I noticed all the people in my life whom I've had sympathy and understand for have literally been complaining about the same thing for years. All of their life problems I've realized are due to their own laziness, poor emotional coping skills, etc... It may sound silly to anyone reading this thread but it was kind of an epiphany for me because I've noticed I've been really selling myself short all my life. Putting up with mediocre or just plain bad people.
My question is can being friends with people like this literally take you down with them? Has anyone had the same experience or had a friend who had the same experience? I need some advice on what to do because I'm taking active steps to improve my life and I feel my friends are a major detriment to my life at this point.
I'm not really an advice giver, just a rambler, but I believe that life is the ocean we swim and you can drown in it. What we surround ourselves with can be a rising tide or an undertow, waves or stillness. The quality of your relationships and your overall social environment truly does affect you for better or worse so to that end, it is important.
All things require effort and time, even if that effort is only your attention or concern and positive attitudes and behaviors tend to lead to positive things. Negative begets negative.
So, generally speaking, it's not in your best interest to surround yourself with stormy seas and negativity. It can pull you under just by weighing you down. The fact that it's even driven you to take stock in this way is proof of how this can impact your quality of life or take up major real estate in your head that could be better invested in something that would put you in a happier state.
I went through a period some time last year or the year before when I realized that I simply didn't have it in me anymore to be surrounded by people who were chronically miserable and running in place. The only way you can reach out to what's standing still is to stand still with it and I think it's natural to reach a point where you want to move forward.
Misery doesn't just love company, it creates it if it has to, attracts it, so it makes sense that when people find themselves surrounded by downers going nowhere, they recognize it started at a point where they were very much in the same position or allowed themselves to sink down with them.
Once you're ready to come up for air and remember what it feels like to breathe instead of suffocating on the ruins of your own bad choices or lack of ambition or self-indulgent wallowing or a simple case of not knowing what to do with yourself and hoping someone can fill in that blank for you or whatever else got you into a rut or landed you among others in a rut, you have no choice but to head for shore.
If you feel like you don't want to face the task of distancing yourself from the elements in your life that you think might be dragging you down (or have the potential to), which was the problem I had at first, remember that living well and living right will naturally distance you from the things and people that pose a threat to that happiness and progress without you even having to lift a finger or say a word.
My life and my attitude have been significantly better since I let the people who poisoned my well with their toxic lives and emotions fall away and with that came better opportunities and experiences. It's really night and day, the inner and outer changes that come about surrounding yourself with boats instead of anchors and, like good food and sex, I'd highly recommend it, heh.
Thank you for your response. Ive been leaning on letting these people go for a long time but everytime I try eventually the loneliness gets to me and I end up hanging or talking with them again.
I have also noticed the difference myself when I compare my life to when I had good, positive, and outgoing friends veruses lazy, depressed, negative friends. You literally begin to mirror their lives and end up like them.
Recently, I've been reorganizing my life and looking at it from an honest perspective. Simply put, the majority of my friends are lazy, negative, and "blame everyone else" type people. I seem to chronically sell myself short in areas of friendship and relationship and I tend to gravitate to people who are either always negative, lazy, or angry -OR- just all around low quality people. This may have to do with the fact I suffered from chronically low self-esteem for most of my life.
Recently I noticed all the people in my life whom I've had sympathy and understand for have literally been complaining about the same thing for years. All of their life problems I've realized are due to their own laziness, poor emotional coping skills, etc... It may sound silly to anyone reading this thread but it was kind of an epiphany for me because I've noticed I've been really selling myself short all my life. Putting up with mediocre or just plain bad people.
My question is can being friends with people like this literally take you down with them? Has anyone had the same experience or had a friend who had the same experience? I need some advice on what to do because I'm taking active steps to improve my life and I feel my friends are a major detriment to my life at this point.
Yes...whatever they are doing will be what you will be doing.
Lazy do nothing peoiple aren't even out and about enough to meet anyone who would bring them up. They meander on Bumpy, curvy roads while people with a purpose are on the Freeway.
The unfortunate thing about being a strong/extroverted person, is that you attract the weak like flies to manure.
I have been stalked/harassed/bothered for decades by folks I knew once and walked away from, even though they get zero back from me. I don't answer their texts, their emails, their phone calls. I don't speak of them or think of them even, until...back they come.
Sorry I have just had an email from an old schoolfriend who...never mind, but I never liked this girl, I was just kind to her. For my trouble, she seems to have developed the idea that I am her "only true friend"...40 years of it.
Bizarre. You can probably tell in my tone I'm a bit rattled. Some of these losers just never quit, it seems like their life's work to bring you down.
Run far from these people. They are everywhere and you will regret you ever let them into your life.
lol @ manure. I glanced at it quickly without being zoomed in on my mobile and thought it said "flies to manicure". But yes, the loneliness is often one of the greater hurdles in making any big decision in life that will change your relationships. Doing what's best for yourself is like clearing up acne (getting worse before it gets better).
A good counter for that is getting accustomed to being your own best friend first and focusing on building up yourself and your life as much as you can on a foundation that doesn't depend on other people. The more you do that, getting rid of dead weight will feel less like you're alone and more like you're just unburdened.
My issue wasn't loneliness but guilt. Walking away from people dragging you down is notorious for that. I just had to remind myself that no one should feel guilty for doing what's best for them or putting themselves first.
The people around you most definitely affect your happiness and success in life.
What are your goals in life? Your passions?
Consider the people you choose to be around, and if they don't share your passions, attitude, and life goals you could benefit by making wiser choices in friends and associates.
"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." Jim Rohn
Recently, I've been reorganizing my life and looking at it from an honest perspective. Simply put, the majority of my friends are lazy, negative, and "blame everyone else" type people. I seem to chronically sell myself short in areas of friendship and relationship and I tend to gravitate to people who are either always negative, lazy, or angry -OR- just all around low quality people. This may have to do with the fact I suffered from chronically low self-esteem for most of my life.
Recently I noticed all the people in my life whom I've had sympathy and understand for have literally been complaining about the same thing for years. All of their life problems I've realized are due to their own laziness, poor emotional coping skills, etc... It may sound silly to anyone reading this thread but it was kind of an epiphany for me because I've noticed I've been really selling myself short all my life. Putting up with mediocre or just plain bad people.
My question is can being friends with people like this literally take you down with them? Has anyone had the same experience or had a friend who had the same experience? I need some advice on what to do because I'm taking active steps to improve my life and I feel my friends are a major detriment to my life at this point.
Our close associations mold and shape us. If you are ambitious, don't associate with the lazy. If you are intelligent, don't associate with people who are idiots and proud of that fact. If you are godly, don't associate with knaves and thieves and wh*remongers. If you are sober and respectable, or want to be don't associate with drunkards and dope fiends. They will entice you to act like them and when you do that, you WILL be brought down.
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