Friend-making is a vital part of every young person’s social development. As a growing youth with a long exciting journey ahead, you’re bound to meet new people, some of whom will make their way into your social circle. These folks, for a considerable period of your life, would constitute your social environment– with influence similar to the Board of Directors of a company.
In the light of the above, it’s necessary to buttress that nothing influences a person as much as the forces at play within his/her social environment. This is more so among younger persons, who by virtue of their fledgling experience of life, are more socially impressionable.
But hey!! Enough of the grammar! The aim here isn’t to frighten you or ruin your excitement about friend-making, but my goal is to acquaint you with the fundamental realities that surround social relationships. The following 3 fundamentals are relevant guidelines to aid your choice of friends:
1. You’re magnetically pulled by your social environment:
Every friendship offers a magnetic pull to ensure that y’all are constantly at the same developmental level. This implies that even if you’re not progress-minded, by virtue of rolling with people who are continuously progressing towards their dreams, they naturally would pull you as they progress. Conversely, if you’re progress-oriented, but your friends are as stagnant as the dead sea, your attempts towards progress would inevitably be frustrated as you’d be pulled back by their mediocrity. It therefore behooves you to take advantage of this truth, and keep company with people who are constantly on the move, who would pull you from your comfort zone to make strides in key areas of your life.
2. Your social environment affects your orientation:
Contrary to popular opinion, the significant period of your life which directly determines who you’d become, will be spent with your friends and not your family. This is a period within which your overall view of life is formed, and your behavioral traits are adopted. This period could override the virtues of your upbringing. As a matter of fact, when the right upbringing meets the wrong company, it’s just a matter of time before one prevails over the other. More often than not, the wrong company gradually stifles the right upbringing.
It’s therefore not enough to be raised right, you’d necessarily need the right company to sustain those virtues that marked your upbringing. If evil communication corrupts good manners (1 Corinthians 15:33), then it takes good communication to uphold good manners. Whether your life would be characterized by virtues or vices, is a function of the company you keep. Take note!
Stay tuned for the third and final point…
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Chibuike Njoku, fondly called “Byky”, is a lawyer with specialization in human rights, democracy and good governance. Byky is a believer in the next generation of world leaders, and is committed to providing them with mentorship.