Friendships and relationships
If you want to be happy, now is the time to relinquish dreams of surrounding yourself with friends and fans who admire you. Instead, seek real friendship with people you admire.
How to know if someone is your friend
- Jordan Peterson
You have both the right and the responsibility to surround yourself with people who are good for the best part of you.
This is a good way of deciding who you should have around you.
You can tell them bad news and they will listen- They won’t tell you are stupid and why that bad thing happened to you or how something worse happened to them once and derail the whole conversation. You can actually tell them bad news and they will listen.
You can tell them good news and they will help you celebrate- If you have someone around you and something good happens to you, and you are afraid to even admit it because if you let that be known and they will certainly be taken away. So you come out and sort of tell someone half-heartedly that something good happened to you and they give you a whack and then talk about some great thing that happened to them three years ago or worse, some great thing that happened to someone that they knew three years ago. Go away from that person. They are not helpful to you and they are not helpful to themselves either.
You want to surround yourself with people who want the best for the best part of you- You can hang around with weasels and losers that are trying to pull you down to justify the fact that they are spiraling downhill as well. The upside of that is that you don’t have to have any responsibility. You can all whine about how wretched life is. It is a bad medium to long-term plan.
It is acceptable and desirable to surround yourself with people who are facilitating your development.
- You can hang around with weasels and losers that are trying to pull you down to justify the fact that they are spiraling downhill as well. The upside of that is that you don’t have to have any responsibility. You can all whine about how wretched life is. It is a bad medium to long-term plan.
Do not enable bad behavior- You might say, well, I know someone and they are not doing that well and they don’t fit into that category. What is your point? What are you going to do with them exactly? If they will listen and cooperate with you and move towards a better future, thats great. If they don’t pay any attention and they keep doing the same thing over and over and they are not going anywhere and it is painful, then maybe,
the proper thing to do is to say "you just have your misery. I will go off and have my life."Maybe you’ll wake up at some point in the future and think thats a better way of being because, just putting up with that kind of behavior is, providing tacit consent for it and even tacit approval. It is a bad idea. It is called enabling.
- You might say, well, I know someone and they are not doing that well and they don’t fit into that category. What is your point? What are you going to do with them exactly? If they will listen and cooperate with you and move towards a better future, thats great. If they don’t pay any attention and they keep doing the same thing over and over and they are not going anywhere and it is painful, then maybe,
Advice on the choice of a Partner
(This applies to a business partner or otherwise)
Look for someone both smarter and wiser than you are. After locating him (or her), ask him not to flaunt his superiority so that you may enjoy acclaim for the many accomplishments that sprang from his thoughts and advice. Seek a partner who will never second-guess you nor sulk when you make expensive mistakes. Look also for a generous soul who will put up his own money and work for peanuts. Finally, join with someone who will constantly add to the fun as you travel a long road together. - Warren Buffet, Foreword to the book “Poor Charlie’s Almanac”.
- Find a person that has the same capacity of brain and soul like you.
- Find a person that is not only attractive but warm hearted.
- Always give more than you take. Always.
- Do not spend too much time together. Make rare.
- Finding love is like playing a beautiful instrument. You need practice.
- Become better. But do not ask for perfection. It will kill your partner - and you.
- It will be hard no matter who you find. There is no easy woman or man. So you have to be tough and with open heart at the same time.
Advice about gifts
From the wired.com article “Walmart and Amazon’s Race to Rule Shopping”
Lauren Goode: On a lighter note, my recommendation is something of a life hack. So whenever I travel to see family, I typically want to bring little gifts, useful things, not just a gift for the sake of a gift, but maybe a local coffee here that I wanted to share with them, or a jar of honey, or maybe some cool soaps or something like that, things that I think people will actually use. But right before you travel is a really, really bad time to determine that you want to do this. So my best life hack is that as you are out and about in the world throughout the year, on a normal regular Saturday running errands, and you see something, particularly if it’s on sale, but if you see something that you think at some point you might want to gift to someone, just get it. Get it at that moment. Don’t put it off. Buy the thing, buy the small thing. And then keep a section of your linens closet or a shelf in your room or something where you just keep these items. And build them up over time so that when you get to the point where you’re trying to pack your bags and you’re going somewhere and you’re thinking, “Oh, I’d like to bring a little housewarming gift to these friends,” you have the things, you have them ready to go. I admit that I wanted to be that lady. When I was younger I was like, “When I grow up, I’m going to have a shelf that’s just filled with really nice little gifts so I always have something on hand.” And I’m working my way toward tht.
Do it at your local stores, and obviously not perishables. But find things that are cool and special and meaningful in some way. Don’t just go on Amazon and say, “Oh, I have to order something because it needs to arrive in two days so I can take it somewhere.”
That’s much better than just drop-shipping something to somebody.
Love the people you are given
Nothing would really get better than the people that I was given, and nothing could be more beautiful than that - being given a kid, a family, and friends to love. That’s it, part of my job is to just stay completely in love with the people I’m given. I’ve really kept that front of mind. - From the article “Why Simply Hustling Harder Won’t Help You With the Big Problems in Life” By Clay Skipper - based on the interview with Kate Bowler about her new book “No Cure For Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear)”
Reading material
Look at these articles.
- I Escaped the Cult. But I Couldn’t Escape the Cult Mentality.
- The only thing you ever need in life is for someone to teach you to read. Everything else you can teach yourself.
- Oftentimes, I have the feeling that I don’t know who I am without some kind of group structure around me. But then again, isn’t that something that we are all searching for?
- These days, I still find myself joining teams and groups; I recognize my own desire for a strong bond with others and a shared ideology. I find drive in running clubs, purpose in volunteer opportunities, and focus in my daughter’s parent-teacher association. I’ve learned to harness my love of community, my sense of safety in a group, and my belief that I can always find a purpose, focus and mission where I will be truly fulfilled.
- Daniella Young is a former U.S. Army captain and one of the first women to conduct deliberate ground combat operations with the Army’s female engagement teams. She is currently at work on a memoir about her experience being raised in a religious cult, being excommunicated, and serving in war.