I usually share quotes from books I’m currently reading or ones I’ve read already. I like to know the context because, context, I believe, is important.
This time however I’m picking one from a book I haven’t read only because the quote spoke to me.
“The people we surround ourselves with either raise or lower our standards. They either help us to become the best version of ourselves or encourage us to become lesser versions of ourselves. We become like our friends. No man becomes great on his own. No woman becomes great on her own. The people around them help to make them great. We all need people in our lives who raise our standards, remind us of our essential purpose, and challenge us to become the best version of ourselves.”
― Matthew Kelly, The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose
Would love to hear your thoughts on this. A lot would have to do with how strong your own personality is of course.
More importantly, knowing this to be true, would anyone purposefully set out to surround himself/herself with people who would be ‘good’ for them? Speaking for myself, I am only guided by who I connect with. I have scores of friends who have charted diametrically different paths from mine and we’ve continued to be friends despite our life choices. Yet I cannot discount the idea completely.
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Pingback: Dignity of emotion #BookBytes – SoftyPink n GloriousRed
Indeed! A person is shaped to a great degree by the influence of the people aound him/her. This also reminds me of the phrase – a person is known by the company he keeps. And of a recent read about ‘Ubuntu’ philosophy.
Regarding who we connect with in life, I would say we aspire to connect with the best experts to make ourselves better (which we do in a passive way through books etc for example). But actual or real connection mostly happens due to certain strange factors like thought waves (wavelength) and shared histories/stories (which we may not even be aware of).
Thanks for sharing this OM…gave me food for thought 🙂
Here is my entry – https://softypinkngloriousred.wordpress.com/2020/06/02/dignity-of-emotion-bookbytes/
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You summed it up perfectly. Books are a great way to connect with experts while real connections come from the heart.
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Wow ! True ! People around us influence a lot especially persons like me who have a tendency to observe other persons a lot !! This idea is wonderful ! Will try to join here after !
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Glad you agree. Would love to have you join in.
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