Have you ever heard that you are the average of the 5 people you spend most of your time with? Or if you swim with the sharks you become a shark, if you lie with dogs you will get fleas. All pointing you to the direction of the company you choose because they are all very true, I have lived this experience and we truly are more alike than we think.

If you were taken out of your current circumstances and placed in one truly opposite to what you know, you will surely adapt to your new surroundings in time and will become more accustomed to the ways of the people you are newly exposed to. Have you ever made a new friend, and before you know it you find yourself using that friends figures of speech or exclamations. Not on purpose they just sort of come out… Right? Have you ever been the only non smoker in a group of smokers? What do you think the chances are that you will start smoking or vice versa.

I have found myself in the company of many different personalities and felt the pull of their lifestyles taking over parts of me, not all of me but parts of me. Subconsciously we adapt to our surroundings and as they change we keep adapting. So why would we not take the people we surround ourselves with more seriously? Why would we continue to choose “bad company” knowing that we will be drawn towards that behavior. The risks that we take with our lives not knowing and understanding the consequences to those choices can be detrimental to our very existence. Because no matter how polar opposite another person may seem, spending enough time with them will draw you closer with each encounter and potentially suck you into a lifestyle you would have not ordinarily chosen for yourself.

Don’t take for granted the influence of the people you surround yourself with, because they could make or break you without you even realizing that its happening. Choose the company you keep, because you will become more and more like them. The pull of friendship is one that is not easily avoided because it lures you with its pleasure and blinds you into thinking that it wont ever affect you. Always be true to who you are and if it feels wrong it probably is wrong. Remove yourself from toxic relationships before they leave a stain on your life or you will have to spend precious time trying to remove those stains that you didn’t even see coming.

Life is too short to waste it on negative choices, make a change now, before its too late and decide who lifts you up and who holds you back, who are your biggest supporters and who never has any words of support for anything that you do. The world is filled with broken people who are trying to hold their head above the water, drowning those around them in the process, not because they are trying to drown them, but because they are trying to survive. Swim away from the drowning crowds and find yourself people who swim at the same pace as you maybe faster, motivating you to to do better , to be better.

Live your life in love.

Tammy