Most people are, the average of their 20 closest friends. The average qualities of the friend group, including gender, weight, height, age, income, and other characteristics, are transferred to the individual. People who are happy have happy friends. Smart folks hang out with smart people. People who are intriguing have interesting friends. People who work hard have hardworking pals. Of course, this is merely a total. There are numerous exceptions. However, this is a reasonable heuristic in general. In the dating pool, meeting someone’s friends will almost likely teach you more about them than going on three dates with them. You are more likely to like someone if you like their pals.
It’s not simply self-selection (though there’s enough of that). Characteristics are very contagious. While height and gender are unlikely to alter dependent on who you spend out with, weight may. If you make a lot of friends who go to the gym, you will most likely go to the gym as well. If all of your friends are going to Burning Man, you will most likely start going as well. If your friends vote one way, you are more likely to vote that way as well. Of course, softer characteristics such as music, art, food, wine, and others might change in a matter of weeks.
Essentially, your pals infect you with a virus. It could be a good virus that improves your life or a bad virus that destroys it. It is more likely that it will impact your personality but not your soul. In conclusion, one of the most important things you can do is choose your buddies. Peers can define you – whether you’re eight or eighty.
Consider that you are better than them in some things, and they’d like to learn from you too. They want a different company, and not people who are skilled in the same things as they are. Your skills don’t matter to them, and they just like your company! Because they like the fact that you appreciate how wonderful they are. Also, hopefully, you are interested in what they are interested in.
You should spend time with people who are better than you. They will then spend time with you since you are better than them on some other scale. Although they may have more experience than you, you are better educated. You are more philosophical. You can share with them what prior thinkers believed about major issues. They can tell you firsthand what it’s like to cope with such issues. You each have just as much to gain as the other.
It is a curious feature of human life that the journey from one person to another is always uphill. Of course, you should spend time with individuals who are better than you, and they will spend time with you because you are better than them on some other scale. Perhaps they have more experience than you, but you have a higher education. You know more philosophy, so you can share with them what past philosophers believed about large difficulties, and they can share some of their aerial struggles with such challenges. Each of you only needs to make it a distinguishing characteristic of your personality. Cheers!
