Associate With People That Make You Feel Better

When you associate with people, one of two things normally happens; you either feel better than you were or the reverse becomes the case, there is no neutrality. Yes, no association leaves you the same way you entered. This is why you have to associate with the people that make you to feel better than you were. More so, your life tends to be heavily influenced by the kind of association you enter into and the kind of company that you keep. You may not notice it, but a very fundamental part of your life is heavily influenced by your association - your thoughts, which then influences your actions and ultimately defines who you are.

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You may not be able to determine the level of influence that your friends and your association will have on you, but you can determine who to be friends with and you can determine your association. If an association is not positively impacting on your life, then you do not have to stay in it, because it might have already started to impact negatively on you without even noticing it. As humans, we have freewills and that includes the freewill of association. Your association should help you to grow and not making you less. So choose wisely.

If you are friends with someone and all they do is to present negativities to you, amplify your faults, talk less about your abilities, overlook your strengths, then you should take a leave. If your friend only comes around to sympathise with you in the event of negative occurrence but are nowhere to be found in your moments of celebration, then they are not worthy to be your friends. I mean, do they only expect negative events in your life? Imagine someone being too quick to sympathise with you but feeling reluctant to celebrate and congratulate you. Does it not send a warning flag to you that they only expect bad things to happen to you?

To know the kind of influence that a friend will make in your life, look at his own life. Obviously, someone can only give you from the much that he already has. If someone's life is evidently bad, you do not expect the person to have a good influence on you, you only need to stay clear. This reminds me of an Igbo proverb (From the Southeastern part of Nigeria) -

If someone promises to give you a pair of shoes, you should take a look at the one that he is wearing to know the kind of shoes that he will give you.

The above proverb is not about shoes but it only means that what you expect someone to give to you is what he already has. Someone that does not have a positive influence in his own life cannot create a positive influence in your own life. This is just like a fish telling a crocodile to teach him how to fly whereas the crocodile does not even have wings in the first place. Before you enter an association, you have to define what you really want from the association and then ask yourself if the association can deliver your expectations (maybe not fully, but to an extent), then you will know if you still want to be in the association.

However, one thing to know is that to get a positive association, you also have to be positively inclined. Of course, no one will use their best plate to pack thrash. Everyone will want an association that will help them to grow, but on your own part, how many people are you helping to grow? Trust me, the whole world and everyone's preferences do not revolve around you. If they find out that you only want to prey on them and only gain from them without contributing anything, you may lose them.

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As much as you want to become better with every friendship and association, also help your friends to become better by having you. Work on yourself so that you can offer something better and not just to expect and expect. A good association should be built on the concept of mutualism (that is an association where everyone gains; a symbiosis), not on parasitism where only one person gets the entire benefits and the other parties are left with nothing. If you find yourself losing friendship as soon as you make them, then it can only prove one thing - your friendliness is not up to par. So you need to work on yourself to become a positive influence on people before expecting positive influence from others.

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