In or Out – Make Up Your Mind
Do the people in our lives influence us more than the people who aren’t in our lives? I was recently having a conversation with Damien about a related topic and this question came up.
By the very nature that we take in the bulk of information while we’re awake it stands to reason that the most influential time of our lives will be while we’re either interacting with or not interacting with a given individual or group. We often think of bad influences when it comes to that shady music, sketchy friends or the media. Still, would it be worse to have a lack of influences? To answer that question we’d first need to determine the value of the influence and then of course the value of the lack of that same influence. Or, I could cut out the mathematics and get right down to the point.
Despite when this post it published, I’m sitting here on December 31st writing this post. It’s 12:16am and everyone has gone to bed except me. Tonight was a bit of a crazy night in that I learned a lot more than I bargained for about three people in my life. Don’t worry, I’ll actually circle around to a point with this eventually.
Someone who I met a few weeks ago sent me an email tonight. He wanted to let me know that it’s been nice but he just can’t seem to stomach knowing me. Um, thanks for being honest? I give him credit – I’m not sure I have the balls to cut negative influences out of my life as quickly as he does. It was definitely a fun ride (for me anyway) and I’ll miss him. So for him, I guess I would have been a greater influence by being in his life than out. After-all, he did kick me out because he was happy with who he is and didn’t want to mess it up.
As most of you know, I recently adopted a dog. While I’ve never had any problems with him, it’s been a different story for the gentleman who I asked to watch Chevy while I head off to the desert in search of bliss. Chevy has decided to claim his territory by lifting a leg pretty much every chance he gets. While you may think I’m OCD, I’ve got nothing on Chris. His place is always immaculate and organized. It would pass the white glove test any day of the week. I can’t even imagine what happened when Chevy started to assert himself. Oh, and then Chevy somehow knocked over a mirrored glass table and then lifted his leg again. Clearly he’s not great at making friends. This situation brings me to ask what sort of an influence my dog has made me out to be? I can only speculate, but it seems that I have been more of a mover and shaker by being present in this situation (or my dog for that matter) than if I was absent.
Finally, I wrapped up my phone calls and turned my phone off for the night. Poured myself a glass of wine and sat down with a friend. We talked for a while around the fire and I realized that it really doesn’t matter if you’re in or out, but you’ve gotta just make up your mind. I can deal with passive aggressive behavior but it usually doesn’t end well. I’m not one of those intuitive guys who just gets it. Generally you’re going to have to lay it out in black and white for me.
I actually have a point. My point is that I believe each person is different in whether they will have a more significant influence either in our out of our lives. In one night I managed to lose one person who could have turned into a really great friend while finding out that despite my dog’s behavior, this other person was willing to look beyond the obvious flaws, assuming I replaced his table. Unfortunately, there’s no way to judge whether a person will have more or less, or a positive or negative influence on us until it’s too late.
Regardless, it’s still a numbers game. How many billions of people are living on this planet? Now how many do you interact with? Seems pretty tiny, eh? If you can assume the potential influence of all those people and compare that with the relatively minuscule influence of the people who do you know then this seems like an easy answer.
I’m bordering on rambling here and I get that – just thinking back on everyone I’ve met that I can possibly remember. Sure, I wish that some of them never walked into my life but at the same time I can’t imagine the path I’d have taken without them. So to come full circle here and answer my own question, I’d dare to wager that the people we don’t meet have far more influence on our lives than the people we do end up with.
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