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Friends and family are a huge part of life. And by family, I not only mean blood related family, but also those friends that given certain circumstances, become so close to you, that they end up feeling like family.
There have been periods of my life where I have been surrounded by loads of family and friends, and other periods, in which I've faced strong loneliness. In the later, I've often felt pretty sad. But at the same time, those are the times in which I've had the opportunity to explore who I am, and focus on personal projects that have surprisingly made me very happy.
Finding some sort of balance
I get the impression that constantly being surrounded by friends leaves us little time to face our personal struggles; those which, in the long run, actually lead us to real personal growth. At the same time, not having friends to share our thoughts, feelings, experiences and achievements with, can lead to a lot of sadness. It seems to me that, although loving ourselves and being satisfied with ourselves first is a key aspect to becoming truly happy, we can’t deny that we're social beings. We love feeling understood, we love sharing, and we need community. I think that what’s important is to not get permanently lost in none of the extremes. The first extreme is to become completely isolated, loosing hope on society, and on the idea that you could eventually be understood by somebody. The other extreme, is to become completely dependent on being with simply anybody, fearing loneliness and the strong feelings that come with it. It happens quite often that we jump from one extreme to the other. We find ourselves wasting our time with people with whom we have little in common, and we loose hope. So we end up isolating ourselves, based on the false belief that no one deserves our time.
Why we need some alone time
I do think that it's necessary to spend some alone time with ourselves, and start to answer the questions that we don’t even have time to pose when we are surrounded by simply too many people. In this alone time, we get to be sincere with ourselves. We get to define who are the kind of people that we want in our lives, and who are those that we want to stay away from, for the sake of our health and personal growth. We get to, little by little, investigate where we can find the kind of people that we want in our lives and how to attract them. We get to express to ourselves, which activities we truly want to be involved in, so that we invest our time in something that adds value to our beings.
Clearing human inventory
Sometimes, more often than we think, it's necessary that we clean up our human inventory. Some people have been in our lives for too long, or we have met in circumstances in which we added value to each other’s lives. However, the same people don’t always serve a purpose in our life. Sometimes, even if it sounds harsh, we have to let them go, and make space for new ones.
Letting them go doesn’t necessarily mean kicking them out of your life. It doesn’t even mean that you have to say something straight up to their face. Letting them go may simply mean being aware that those persons should no longer be your number 1 go to option. It means that having free time, does not necessarily mean that you have to go spend it with them. Letting them go, means that you can still love them and appreciate them, but you won’t allow them to sabotage your growth, because if you let that happen, the purpose of connection and community loses its meaning, and letting that happen is on you, not on them.
Ask tons of questions
Be mindful of your time, of your friendships, of the journeys that you embark on. Question your actions for your best. Question your decision to be with certain people. Look back and answer the most relevant questions. Why are you with them? What do you share in common? How are you contributing to them? How are they contributing to you? Is it all worth it? Does it add any value to your life? Maybe it adds value to your life because you add value to theirs, and seeing them happy translates into gain for you. That’s perfect. That’s being genuinely humble. But, is it the case? Every once in a while, take a step back to look at your life. Look at your routine, your activities, your friends. How much of that are you proud of? How much of what do, do you want to keep unchanged, and how much of that doesn’t really speak to your essence?
Realise that you're the only person that can change the course of your life. It’s the little decisions the ones that shape your path. Don’t just copy the decisions of the people around you, specially if you are not sure why they are part of your social circle. When you have been mindful in choosing the people within your social circle, then you can start mindfully copying some of their actions. But don’t do it with random people just because it seems normal. Don’t build a life with your eyes closed. You don’t have to. Nobody is forcing you, and it’s time for you to realise this.
This is just me
I'll speak for myself now. I don’t want in my life, people whose main focus is criticising others. I want people in my life who are focused on what they can do to make this world a better place.
Don’t get me wrong. I'm not aiming for people who want to be president, although that’s also fine. I'm aiming for people that are willing to be conscious everyday of the words that they put out there. I'm looking for people who’d rather stay quiet than not add value with their words.
I'm looking for people who focus on everything that works and not on everything that doesn’t work, but who when noticing everything that doesn’t work, make their biggest effort to not mention it - unless - it's in the attempt to provide a solution for it, even if their attempt is far from doable or common logic.
I'm looking for people who may or may not be afraid of being the least smart person in the room, but that in any case, are willing to accept it and let it show, to be able to learn from the rest. I want in my life, people who see the beauty in every situation. People who are not afraid to sound too corny because all they can do is focus on how amazing everything is.
I don’t care what their profession is, what their taste in music is, or what country they come from. I'm looking for people that resemble the person that I'm trying to become. For people that take me closer to who I want to be, instead of pulling me away from it.
And now, I'm asking you: what kind of people do you want in your life?
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