Great Expectations

I have recently been surrounding myself with people that expect more from me. As a result, I’ve been expecting more from myself.

When your friends are fit, starting their own businesses, living in the coolest neighbourhoods, surrounded by gorgeous women, intense workers, and extremely positive it is difficult to not have those qualities rub off on yourself.

My recent motorcycle trip is an excellent example. I could have easily chickened out at the last moment and not gone. But the great stories my other friends had about exotic places kept me motivated. It kept me in the right mind state. I woke up that first morning and just expected my self to get on the bike and leave.

The opposite is usually true as well. If all of your closest friends smoke, then you are probably a smoker too. You probably won’t quit smoking until you stop hanging out with your friends. Harsh? Yup. True? Yup.

My friends in my high school graduating class are an anomoly. We were all competitive and expected each other to go off to university and do great things. And most of us are doing very well. We had some great teachers, too. They were smart enough to play off the competitive angle and push us even harder.

You know you better do well because if you didn’t you would get trash-talked. We used to gather around a tennis court after school every day. If you hadn’t shown up to the gym that day you would get trash-talked. If you didn’t do well on a test you would get trash-talked. If you weren’t playing hard enough on the basketball court you would get trash-talked.

It’s difficult enough keeping in touch with all of my positive friends. A lot of my less positive friends I only see once a month or so. It can be difficult experience sitting there. I find myself trying to change the subject over and over again. I’ve learned from experience that change can happen in an instance, but I’m not skilled enough to be a catalyst.

Previously, I would try to appeal to rationale or emotion to help the other person change. These days I just nod, smile, hug, say that “I understand”, and move on. Change has to come from within and a person’s environment is a much bigger influencer than anything I can say.