Foreword
Friends, family, classmates, and colleagues are the people who affect our lives the most. Each of them teaches us different things when you are staying with them. As the ancient Chinese pronoun said, “one who stays near vermilion gets stained red, and one who stays near ink gets stained black.” People we spend our time staying with will either make us better or devastate us. Therefore, knowing who you should spend your time with is vitally important since it will determine who you will become in the future. In this article, I will share some of my thoughts on choosing our accompany wisely with you. Also, give you some ideas or mindset to help you get through those tough days when you feel lonely.
People around you do matter
No matter who you are staying with, your friends, family, classmates, colleagues, allies, enemies, or whoever, what they do and what is in their mind will affect you. It determines how you grow and who you will become in the future. If you have watched some criminal movies, you may notice that criminals in those movies are used to befriending someone who has a similar background to them.
It doesn’t just happen in the film, but also in the real world. Arel Moodie, a famous bestselling author, the founder of “True Speaking Success,“ have once mentioned a concept, the average of 5, in his speech that tells the five people that we spend our time the most with are the ones who determine who we are, what ability we own, how rich we are… This concept applies to everyone. And it has been proven. You can take a look of Warren Buffett, his friend Charlie Munger and Bill Gates.
Rule of thumbs to choose your accompany
When you are thinking of choosing the ones you stay with to make you become a better person. Here are two rules that I found helpful. The first one is what I have mentioned previously, the average of 5. And the second one is finding people who have the same or similar ambition as you. I am going to explain more in the following paragraphs.
i. Average of 5
As previously mentioned, the average of 5 is a concept brought up by Arel Moodie, a famous bestselling author, the founder of “True Speaking Success“ It is a rule that tells us we will get the average ability, wealth, thoughts, and more of the five people we spend our time the most staying together. Of course, things that cannot be changed would not be affected, such as your height, your family… The average of 5 is an important concept when you are looking for your accompany, especially when you want to learn from your friend.
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
Jim Rohn
In the 《Confucian Analects》, there is a sentence that is worth us to read and ponder —”When three are walking together, I am sure to find teachers among them. I will select their good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities, and avoid them.” The way people affect you depends on how mature you are. If you find something they did is wrong, then avoid becoming the next one who does the same thing. If you find something they did is right, learn from them and ask them for help when you are in need.
(Everyone could be the one who influences you. It can be an author of a book, an online course/campaign teacher, or whoever you spend your time with them. It is not a must for both of you to know each other or having F2F communications.)
Of course, sometimes you may not have the ability to judge whether they are doing right or wrong, and probably you may not know what you should, or you would learn from what they did. That’s fine. No one can be right every time or have the ability to judge everything accurately. In such cases, all we can do is to look for good accompany hence eliminating the possibility for us to learn wrong things.
ii. Your ambition
Another thing you should be aware of when you are looking for your accompany is your goal. Knowing what you want to achieve or what you are pursuing is vitally important when you are finding who you should stay together. It helps you filter out people who do harm to your personal growth and help you find those who are worth spending your time together.
But wait for a second, do you know what you are pursuing in your life? Or who do you know what you want to be in the future? Often, I found that my peers don’t know what they would like to be in their future. If you don’t know what you should pursue throughout your life, you could now start trying different things, such as reading books, doing some volunteer jobs. The purpose of trying these things is to let you know what you are enjoying doing. Afterward, try to connect them as much as possible to your life and your career.
| What to do? |
|---|
| 1. Start trying different things (e.g. Read books, do volunteer work…) |
| 2. Try to connect them to your life. |
Go and do something you enjoy, and in the meantime, remember to make for your living. Often, I hear people say money doesn’t matter to our life. It’s wrong, from my perspective. Since the thing that helps us to survive or finding fulfillment is money. It is irreplaceable, and the more we get, the more we can do to live better. Even if we are doing some volunteer work, we can serve more people when we get more budget.
Of course, I am not saying that money matter the most in our life. Love and happiness are also essential to us. However, I don’t think you can survive by just using love or happiness. Imagine your loved one need to undergo surgery. Do you think the surgeon will help you when you pay nothing and tell him you love his patient so much?
(Something I would like to bring out. Hobbies/What you enjoy can make you money. The only problem is how you are going to make it happen?)
Mindset you should adapt
You may sometimes feel lonely when you are stilling finding your partner who company you to get through tough days or teach you stuff. It is normal. We, humans, are social animals that like to live and stay with our same kinds. Here are some mindsets you should adapt when you are trying to get rid of the loneliness rise when you are still unable to find your partner.
i. You are born to be a loner
You come to this world without any company. It’s the same when you leave this world. Feeling lonely is common as we could never bring anything to and away from this world. Apart from that, the life path of everyone varies. No one’s route is identical. We have different backgrounds, different values toward things, different experience, different goals, different habits, different ways to deal with problems, and more. And these variables make us extraordinary and different from each other, also make our life path poles apart from each other.
You are to acknowledge that no one can company you for your entire life. You will meet new friends, new colleagues or new partners. The one who stays with you most of the time is yourself. Therefore, you must be able to live well with yourself. You must be able to love yourself. You must be comfortable to stay alone.
(Personal advices: Do not try to keep someone staying with you forever.)
(Please stop and think for a while before reading onward)
ii. Fewer contact ≠ Breaking up relationship
Often, I found people say the maintenance of a relationship requires interaction. It’s right since people will forget the feeling when they are staying with you after a period. However, a true friend or a robust relationship doesn’t require you to do that thing as they already admit you are their friend/family/partner from the bottom of their heart. The relationship between you and them will not change even if you seldom contact them or contact them after a very long period. You and they will still be able to talk, play and stay together comfortably. They will also sit here and listen to you when you want to pour your heart out.
Of course, you may lose some “friends” when you cut down the time which is used to spend with them. It’s normal. As previously said, no one will company you for your entire life. You will lose friends and meet new ones throughout your life. So, take it easy when people are trying to leave you as it is inevitable.
(Please stop and think for a while before reading onward)
Action for now
After reading and pondering what I have mentioned in above paragraphs, I believe now you are prepared to take action. Of course, you may also need some time to digest what I have talked. That’s fine. You can refer to this article again if you are ready.
| Steps to take now | What to do? |
|---|---|
| 1️⃣ | List the five people you spend your time the most staying with. |
| 2️⃣ | Write down 5 things that they are strong at or impressive you. |
| 3️⃣ | Write down what you are pursuing (with the plan and steps that you are going to take to accomplish it). |
| 4️⃣ | Think whether they have the skills or knowledge you need to achieve your goal |
| ✅ | Spend more time to stay with them. |
| ❌ | Try to lower the time spending with them. |
Keep in mind, who you stay with will makes who you will be. You will only be a loser if you insist to stay with other losers.
Final Thought
Friends, family, classmates, and colleagues are the people who affect our lives the most. Each of them influences and teaches us different things when we are staying with them. It is vitally essential for us to pick the right ones to stay with and learn from them. In this article, I have shared some of my thoughts about how we could choose our accompany wisely. Hope you find this helpful.
This article has been reviewed in accordance with our editorial policy.]
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