What Sourrounds Us?

We are all, more or less, affected (and infected!) by the people and attitudes around us. What do we notice in our life? If we have accidentally get ourselves locked in the toilets for an hour, we might say, "What a smell!" And then we get used to that environment. For the first few minutes, we may think the smell is very strong. Later on, it does not seem to smell quite so badly.

In the same way, if we live with miserable people and we in turn become miserable, we come to think that being miserable is normal! If we work with critical people, we become critical and, again, we think it’s normal.

If our friends tell lies, it worries us in the beginning. Eventually we get used to people telling lies. Hang out with them long enough and we’ll tell some ourselves. Mix with happy and motivated people, and we become happy and motivated and we think that is normal.

What is it that surrounds us? If we are surrounded by negativity and miserableness, then we need to find something or someone who is bright, positive, happy and wise. Somewhere in our life, we need positive company or the pessimists will drag us down and we won’t even know it is happening. Right this minute now is a good time to observe life loosely, to see what surrounds us. When we know whether goodness or badness surrounds us, we can deal with it in a wise way.

It is true that we are all affected by the people and attitudes around us. Sometimes we need to take action – or change the company we keep. We still need to keep asking, ‘Is there something negative or positive which surrounds us".