We all have friends that we love and adore. Hanging out with them is a pleasure, and we look forward to every visit with them.
Friends are to upbuild, encourage, and cheer you on. Friends are the ones that believe in you when you doubt yourself. Your friends, as an old ancient proverb says, “Know the song to your heart. So that when you forget the words, they can sing it back to you.”
Hopefully you have friends like that in your life. They are far and few, but they are there in our lives just the same. We cherish them in our hearts always.
I’ve heard more than once that you are a summation of your 5 closest friends, that means your attitude, your paycheck, and your values. This is the mirror that you can check to see the quality of your life.
I had to drop a few friends on my journey. I had to look at their life, then look at mine, and I was forced to see how their drama was dripping into my life as well.
So here are the sort of friends that I had to purge from my life:
DREAM CRUSHERS and FEAR MONGERS
Some of my friends were dream crushers. By dream crushers, I mean the pessimist. The person that will tell you that you are crazy and give you a ton of reasons why you will not succeed. The person that tells you to get your head out of the clouds, and to get a reality check. Honestly, these people are cowards and they are boring. They pull you down so that you will never succeed. The reason is that if you DO succeed, they will have to ask themselves why their life sucks- why they never accomplished anything.
Fear is their number one reason for never trying to accomplish any dreams that they may have. Fear of failure, fear of man, fear of looking foolish. Fear is the killer of their progress. It will be the killer of yours of you continue to have this sort of friend. Fear spreads gladly… from them to YOU. Get rid of the fear mongers and dream crushers.
Gossipers
Proverbs 16:28
Troublemakers start fights; gossips break up friendships- The Message Bible
Boy, this says a mouthful. I couldn’t understand why this type of friend was always fighting with people. You can phone them, pick them up, go for a walk with them and they were ALWAYS complaining about someone they were fighting with. A few times I was drug into a physical fight with them. I’m up here fighting a complete stranger and I have no idea as to why I’m fighting. But guess what, the gossip was in the background or fighting right beside me.
It didn’t take me long to get rid of this sort of friend. But the friend that is always arguing with people is just as bad.
So I picked up my cell phone and …DELETE. I don’t need to hang out with this sort of person anymore.
TIME WASTER
This friend will keep you on the phone for hours if you let them, talking about nothing. Normally they just want to be heard by someone. They may ramble on and on about the same problem… over… and over…again. There is normally no solution, although you’ve given them about 10 solutions. They will never act on your advice. They will continue to call you with the ‘I’m a victim’ voice and speech.
Today, I keep this sort of ‘acquaintance’ at arms length. I call them in between another appointments. They get 5 minutes of my time, and them I’m off the phone on to a scheduled appointment. The 5 minutes gives me just enough time to control the conversation to see how they are doing, and how their family is doing. Any longer on the phone with this type of person and a good portion of your day is wasted.
My phonebook was nearly empty 4 years ago. But over time, I have built it back up with phone numbers of true friends, encouragers, coaches, and mentors that have helped me along my journey. There are still more numbers in the near future that I will add as well. Not only have I improved my friends list, but I have also developed into being a good friend as well.
My challange to you is: Think of people that you look up to. Think about the characteristics that you admire the most about them, and write them down beside their name. Ask yourself, are there other people like this that you could be spending more time with? Write them down, and then ask yourself if you possess any of those qualities. Make a goal each week to work on just 1 quality that you would like to improve on or develop.
Just remember: For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
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