The Company You Keep Really Can Make or Break You

There is an old saying that tells us, the company you keep will determine your downfall or your success in life. When I was a young man, I didn't believe this one bit. My thought was how could my friends bring me down? I'm my own person and make my own decisions, but what I didn't realize is that it is much deeper than that.

First and foremost, the people we surround ourselves with tend to rub off on us in many ways. They influence the way we think, the words we speak, the way we dress, and the habits we form. People, who are around thugs all the time, take on thuggish qualities. People, who are always around business people, take on business like qualities. That's just the way the world works. Think about it, if I was a skater, why would I be surrounded by tennis players all the time? We tend to associate with those we have things in common with. I understood that we have similar qualities as those we hang around with; it was the downfall part that I didn't get.

As I grew older, and got more experience in this world, I stood back and analyzed all that I have been through, and what others around me have been through. This is the moment where I realized that the people you are around the most actually do have a major impact on where you will end up in life. Using myself as an example here, as a teenage, all of my friends and associates were gang affiliated. I personally have never been a trouble maker, but that didn't matter because the people around me attracted all kinds of trouble. I got into fights with guys I probably would have otherwise been friends with. I had numerous run-ins with the law. There was actually a time in my life, where I couldn't go a full year without getting arrested. That was until I got bored of the city where I was living, and decided to move to another city, to a place where I knew no one.

The change was hard in the beginning, but the fact that the police didn't know who I was, I didn't have to be nervous when they were driving behind me, and the people I started hanging out with actually had goals they wanted to achieve in life, was very refreshing. Now that I'm in a new environment, surrounded by more positive, determined individuals, I've become my own boss, and in 4 years, I haven't even got a traffic ticket. I have friends and relatives who have been shot and are no longer living because of the group of people they hung out with. Just like me, they didn't want any trouble nor did they cause any trouble, but someone driving by with the intention of shooting at their rivals does not know the difference between who is in the gang and who isn't. So many innocent people have lost their lives and continue to lose their lives like this.

What you should take with you from this article is that the people who you surround yourself with, actually do effect who you are and where you'll go in life. First you've got to have the desire to change, because if I didn't move with the intention of changing my life around, I would have fell right back into my old lifestyle, just in a different location.