A Perpetual Case of the Mondays

One of the most important lessons I learned in 2010, and apparently am still trying to learn, is the importance of surrounding yourself with positive people. It didn’t used to matter to me. For someone who doesn’t have a lot of friends, for someone who was a self-proclaimed painfully shy anti-social, my thinking is that I couldn’t really afford to be picky with whom I hang out with. And in a way, it’s partly true. I’m so devoid of personality that people don’t naturally gravitate towards me. Thus, my human interaction is almost always kept to a minimum, which my humanity, in turn, tends to emotionally blackmail me to long for. It’s logic, really. So when you think about it, a guy like me cannot afford to be picky when it comes to friends.

But sometimes you get fed up with the kinds of people you keep. And you start to think. And sometimes that leads to realizing stuff about yourself that you never saw coming.

You are selling yourself short.

It never fails to amaze me how other people’s negative energy can drag you down. Even I admit to subconsciously having done this countless times. Which is why it’s important to surround yourself with the right kind of people. It’s not about the quantity, but the quality.

Of course, this attitude comes with a responsibility to try and be the kind of positive energy that people need around them. It’s a give and take kind of thing. You can’t feed off of other people’s positivity, only to drag them down with your own negativity. And it’s a hard thing to do, this maintaining of one’s positivity. Humans, after all, do go through ups and downs.

But now the question becomes, are you being a bad friend by not being there for your friends in their down times?

Let’s face it. Life’s a vicious cycle, and the obvious answer would’ve been yes, you are being a bad friend. But honestly, I think the whole thing is circumstantial. If you don’t feel that your friend appreciates you enough, then it’s time to reconsider where that friend stands. You don’t shun them for being the negative forces in your life you desperately wish to avoid like Swine Flu. No, you drift slowly away to give them space and allow them to grow into themselves. Then you reconnect when they reach out to you. Keep things open-ended. Don’t ostracize them for the rest of your short life.

To me, this is what makes you a quality friend.