Find Out Who Your Friends Are

This morning I find myself thinking on the issue of getting advice from friends. More specifically, I'm thinking about WHICH friends we get our advice from regarding different areas of our lives.

As en example, if you want to have a happy, lasting marriage, which of your friends would you seek out to talk to about marital issues? Think about this for a moment...

If you spend your time talking about marital issues with friends who are not and have never been in a truly happy, lasting marriage, what sort of advice do you think they are likely to give you? Chances are they will encourage you to do things that people seem to think are okay to do -- in an UNHAPPY relationship. It's likely that if you're handling situations in ways that could be handled better by doing things differently than you are now, these friends WON'T look at you and say "Maybe that's not such a good idea. That could be part of the problem. Have you ever thought about doing (???) instead?" It's not that you shouldn't be friends with these people. But always keep in mind that there might be other people out there who can give you at least a little better advice.

Using the example of marital issues, do you have friends who have been happily married to the same person for 10 years? 20? 30? Ask yourself (honestly) how much time you spend bouncing ideas off of them and listening to their advice (even if it seems to be in the form of casual conversation, there might be some advice buried in there.) If you'd estimate that you spend 1/10th the time talking with these people (especially about relationship issues) that you do talking with friends who have a history of divorces, cheating between spouses, abusive, dysfunctional relationships, you might be setting yourself up for failures and not even realize it.

I see the same theory applying to work: seek out work and career advice from people with a history of being happily employed and being good employees and team members, not from "job hoppers" who tend to get fired or quit jobs often.

Raising kids? Do you think someone who has no kids (or teenagers) or does have kids but they all ended up in juvenile detention is the right person for parenting advice? Or would you perhaps be a little better off to get such advice from people who have raised kids with less history of problems -- kids that graduated high school, maybe attended college, and have settled into happy, productive, highly functional lives?

Sometimes we get stuck in patterns of counterproductive behavior. (Especially) when our behavior patterns and decision making are based on what we found ourselves doing in unhappy, failed relationships, or bad job situations, or nightmare child-rearing situations, we begin to justify repeating those behaviors and decisions in present situations and by doing so we end up making the situation worse instead of doing things and making choices that could actually improve the situation. Toss in a friend or two who (with a good heart but poor experience) actually supports our dysfunctional behaviors and decisions, making comments like "Oh, honey, I'd have done exactly the same thing. That's showing them!" and those comments make us feel validated and justified; whereas, maybe what we needed to hear was more like "I don't think that was the wise thing to do. If you want trust in your marriage, the worst thing to do is get upset about something and sneak around or hide stuff. That's guaranteed to tear your relationship apart."

True friends challenge us to rise to the occasion and be our best. They don't just "accept us as we are" when we're doing things that could wreck our lives. At the least, a true friend who has never been in a good relationship, or had a job they loved for a long time, or raised kids without excessive issues, will look at you and honestly say "I don't think I'm the person you ought to talk to about that. Maybe you should talk to so-and-so, because she's got a little better track record there."

We worry a lot about who our kids hang around. Why? Because we know that if they hang around certain kids a lot, they will adopt some of their behaviors. If we know a kid's a troublemaker or drinks or does drugs, etc., we don't want our kids picking up those same behaviors, do we? Do you think the phenomenon of picking up bad behaviors and ideas from others stops when you're no longer a kid? No longer a teenager? No longer in your 20's? No. It never stops.

I am not suggesting outright "dumping" all your friends. But I am suggesting that we (we, not just others -- I am trying to digest my own thoughts here, too) think about WHICH FRIENDS are the right ones to get advice and support from, and which ones are better suited for discussing other (or less serious) matters in life. If you don't have friends with a history of great marriages, careers, child-rearing, etc., think about the implications of that, then look around. There are people out there that could become your friends and enrich your life in the short-term and long-term.

You can't pick your parents. But you can pick who it is you surround yourself with and get influenced by.
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