Surround yourself with the right people

In my introduction I mentioned the importance of having a group of friends supporting you in your struggle to change your habits. Last weekend when I visited my mother (divorced , lives in a small town) and sister (married, two kids, lives in a small village)  I realised that it is equally important to spend less time with people who have a limiting impact on your lifestyle.

After telling them that I am planning a backpacking tour to Asian jungle on my own, my mother got half hysteric because of the risk I am taking. Not only I might get robbed or beaten up, it is also possible I could get swine flu far away from  a good quality hospital.

So far two persons died of swine flu in Sweden (pop. 9 million). The media coverage of those two cases has been intense so for those who mostly see the world on TV it might seem that humanity is going under due to the pandemic .  Just to put it in a perspective I can add that  on average 2000 people/year die of normal flu in Sweden.

My sister, who for many years now has endeavoured to isolate herself and her family and form a secure zone independent of the rest of society, came up with an innovative solution to the problem. Somewhere she heard that a kind of penicillin normally used for HIV patients is supposed to strengthen the resistance to diseases in general. If I could convince a doctor to sign it out for me for that one month I am planning to travel, I could perhaps avoid swine flu while visiting Cambodia.

First it took me a while to understand she was serious, then I got stunned. I was unable to formulate an answer. It seemed that her mind pattern so far away from mine, I could not find a way to get a message through. And they really put some effort to convince me that backpacking alone is foolish.

What struck me then was that surrounding oneself with people who support your changes not only means that you should get new friends but also that you should leave people who have a limiting affect on you behind. Normally the ones who struggle the most to keep things from changing are the ones who will point out for you how important it is to stay in touch with distant relatives an childhood friend with whom you nowadays have nothing in common. Before you accept an invitation next time consider how much they can bring to your life, if anything at all, to avoid spending time in a way you dislike. Life is to short for that.