The People You Surround Yourself With

I’m only 23. I like to think I’ve experienced more than the average 23 year old, but who am I to say? I’ve crashed a few times but I've never burned. I've probably been given a little more than I've earned. I've lost and found myself more than a couple of times and I'd be lying if I said I know exactly who I am and who I want to be.

In those 23 years I've spent many sleepless nights asking myself difficult questions. What am I doing with my life? Who do I want to be? When will I know I’m truly successful? Over time, I realized these questions aren’t just difficult, they’re unanswerable. The answers to questions like these consistently evolve and constantly pull us in one direction or the other.

This realization brought me to ask yet another question — what really are the important questions to ask yourself? What questions do I need to ask myself to live and lead a full, meaningful life? Again, no perfect answer exists here, but we must start somewhere. Over the next several weeks, I’ll be posting important questions to ask yourself. These questions serve as a starting point for anyone out there looking to take a good, hard, honest look at who they are, where they are, and what they stand for. I’ll not only dive into why these questions deserve your answers, but I’ll also try my hand at answering them as truthfully and whole-heartedly as I possibly can.

Do the people you surround yourself with bring you life?

Everyone knows the feeling. You spend several weeks away from your closest friend, and a rush of happiness streams through your body the second you reunite. You pick up right where you left off without skipping a beat. Friends like these can be hard to find, but when surrounded by them you undeniably live your fullest life.

The Importance of the question

The people you surround yourself with make a massive impact on your mental, emotional, and physical health. That idea needs little explanation, but I’ll give you a couple of quick, overly simplified examples. If the people you surround yourself with consistently give you a hard time about things, you’ll inevitably start to doubt yourself. On the contrary, if the people you surround yourself with always boost you up and support your endeavors, you’re sure to become a more self-confident person. The same thing goes for your physical health. If your roommate loves going to the gym, chances are he/she will convince you to join him/her. On the other hand, if he/she sits around watching TV all day, you’re much more likely to do the same (or lose motivation to keep going to the gym yourself).

finding the right people

Now, let’s talk about what kind of people bring you life. It’s important to make the distinction between “good” people and similar people. If the people you surround yourself with believe in and stand for the same things as you, it inhibits your growth as an individual. Part of leading a full life comes through argument… disagreement… diversifying your perspective. Find people who challenge you. Find people who encourage you to reach your goals. People that empower you… support you... energize you. These kind of people bring you life.

struggling with the honest answer

I think anyone in their 20-somethings experiences some degree of having to deal with negative people. These people make you feel like your goals are unattainable, they make you feel like being yourself is inadequate or incorrect. It gets hard when you care deeply about these people and believe they’re capable of becoming a positive influence on your life. I’m guilty of letting these kinds of people linger around. If I’m deeply and truly honest with myself, the days spent without interaction with these people are my happiest, but putting those emotions aside is hard and requires a lot of strength — strength I know I have but can’t always find. That’s okay! It’s a work in progress.

bringing out the best

I had a discussion with my roommate earlier this week about how lazy we both became in college. Back in high school, we always had something going on. For me, that meant elevating my photography and videography and for him it meant working on iOS applications. As we progressed through college, our work ethic declined. By our senior year, we drank with friends 3-4 nights a week, fell into the worst shape of our lives, and lacked almost all of that drive we use to have back in high school. Don’t get me wrong, we had an absolute blast in college. I think I speak for both of us when I say we would likely change very few things about our college experience. I say all this as a prerequisite to explaining where we both are now.

Today, our weekly schedules contain a healthy balance of youthful energy and necessary restoration. We save money (and our waistlines) by cooking all of our meals at home during the week, but we allow ourselves to splurge a bit on brunch and drinks on weekends. We’ll go hard on a Saturday and then spend Sunday at a coffee shop. We spend the end of each day bouncing ideas off each other like two table tennis pros rallying for game point because we support and share each other’s dream of becoming creators, not consumers. It’s really fucking cool, honestly.

Michael and Me: A GIF

Finding a friend that encourages and empowers you to become your best self is exciting. Especially at the young age of 23, it makes you feel like you have no ceiling for your future success. I can confidently say Michael’s that dude for me… even when I walk into our apartment to him on the floor drunkenly Snapchatting himself with the two dogs in our apartment at 2AM.