The importance of surrounding yourself with good people.

All of us have been asked the question, “If someone wanted you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?” To think that we would do almost anything just because it’s “cool” or because our friends tell us to is alarming. It seems like our generation will do anything to be accepted. This makes choosing good friends one of the most important things we’ll ever do.

It is incredible how much peers can affect our lives. If we surround ourselves with good influences it is far more likely that we will act like better people. On the flip side, if we associate with bad people, it is far more than likely that we’ll be pressured into doing bad things. 

In Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem, “Good and Bad Children,” he wrote something that really stuck with me. 

“Happy hearts and happy faces, 

Happy play in grassy places– 

That was how in ancient ages, 

Children grew to kings and sages. 

But the unkind and the unruly, 

And the sort who eat unduly, 

They must never hope for glory– 

Theirs is quite a different story! 

Cruel children, crying babies, 

All grow up as geese and gabies, 

Hated, as their age increases, 

By their nephews and their nieces.”

It’s disheartening to watch someone struggle right in front of us because of the people they choose as friends. It seems like they change in an instant. 

We’ve all learned about peer pressure, but most of us reject that it applies to us because we believe we are good people who are wise enough to make solid decisions. And maybe we are. But the amount of power that our peers have over us can be overpowering. 

As new trends develop, everybody wants to fit in. Some trends are harmless like TikTok. Others aren’t. Vaping, for instance, is harmful and risks becoming an addiction. Whatever the topic, when we see our friends doing it, suddenly we begin to consider doing something we’d never do. It’s scary to find out that someone who we thought was a good person is doing something they would never do, simply because of their poor choice of peers. 

Vaping isn’t cool. Doing drugs isn’t cool. And doing things that you aren’t ready for definitely is not cool. So why do it at all?

Sometimes people do things in the moment, often out of instinct. When young people are faced with decisions of right and wrong, and their friends influence them to choose the wrong direction, they feel like they need to do it. D’arcy Lyness, a psychologist with a Ph.D. said, “The stresses in your life can actually come from your peers. They may pressure you into doing something you’re uncomfortable with, such as shoplifting, doing drugs or drinking, taking dangerous risks when driving a car, or having sex before you feel ready.” 

Peer pressure is common and it’s easy to understand how someone can get caught in a bad situation. But this is where choosing the right people as friends come into play. If we choose the right people to associate with, then it’s far less likely that we’ll be stuck in a situation where we are afraid to say no. 

Other than weddings or funerals, I have never been to church. But one verse from the bible makes complete sense to me: “Bad company corrupts good character.”