How do friends and their lives influence the way I live mine?

2026 Day 166. #PersonalDays.

Often I have come across the phrase that you are the summation of all of the people around you. I always agreed with the phrase thinking I knew what it meant until I recently discovered otherwise. It is not that I was incorrect in my assessment of the phrase, it was simply incomplete.

I have always been someone who knows a large number of people but likes to keep his circle small. This is not because any inherent social background (or so I would like to assume), but simply because I find it difficult with keeping with a lot of people.

I try to make good relationships, try and understand my closest friends so I can understand their behaviours and micro-expressions. I have gotten to know a few people like the back of my hand and I absolutely adore these people.

There are others in the vicinity that exist and have had an impact on my life but their influence has been rather minimal. This is simply because I do not see them often enough to be inspired by them. I keep in touch because they are good people and I do think highly of them, but because of a lack of proximity they have not had enough influence on my behaviours.

So how have the close friends impacted me?

It is rather confusing to describe, the situation seems like a dog chasing its own tail.

I like to think I became good friends with some over others because of the similarity in our mindsets and outlook of life.

Recently I have been forced to rethink this and come up with the idea that our similarity is not the reason we are good friends but we are similar because we rubbed off on each other.

Do I have any evidence to back either of the ideas up? Only circumstantial.

If I wanted concrete proof I would either need a time machine so I can go back into the past and record every major transition I have faced in the years that have gone by.

Or,

I would to remember everything that I have ever heard, said, learned, and stored in my mind.

Remembering everything seems easier than bending the laws of physics.

Still the reason I had to give this a lot of thought is because I was exposed to ideas about a job and a career that was much different than what I currently had. These new ideas and thoughts are something I definitely agreed with, and possibly wanted at some point in my life.

Over the years I have evolved my ideas many times. Change is the only constant and I would like to admit that I have adapted fairly well.

So why did I feel this sudden wave of nostalgia when I heard these ideas. Could it be possible that my ideas evolved with the people that I tend to spend more of my time with?

It seems entirely plausible.

On thinking deeper about this idea I want to reject the notion.

A lot of the things I want from my future are because I never got them in my past. Think of it as satisfying my inner child.

Other things that I want that are not materialistic, are learned behaviours and examples. A lot of the people I respect and love have unknowingly shown me good habits and I have been fortunate enough to have adapted them to some degree.

Some have shown me the ideas and habits that I disagree or find rather beneath me. This has also influenced the way that I think and work by teaching me who or what I should not become.

In short, I would like to assume that I am the summation of experiences that have inspired me to be better and the paths that I should not trod on. My friends have had different paths in life, but even though their experiences were much different than mine, we ended up having similar conclusions.

With such friends I am not bounded by nostalgia or a the trauma in out experiences, because what I learned through negative reinforcement, they probably learned through positive examples. What matters more is that we arrived at the same conclusions irrespective of what we have accomplished and what we expect to do in the future.

So, I agree, I am the summation of all my friends, but I would be the same person without them. The only idea is that I have surrounded myself with people who have similar long-term and personal ideas as me and thus I tend to get along better and easier with them than anyone else.

I hope you too find friends who are as amazing as you are and always try taking you forward.

See you tomorrow.