Benefits and Challenges of Surrounding Yourself with Like-Minded People
Apart from family and co-workers, we do have a choice of who we allow into our lives. The question is, are we choosing wisely? Are we making our lives more positive and peaceful, or are we finding ourselves stuck in dramatic and stressful situations based solely on who we find in our personal relationships.
If our circle of people have similar interests, goals, morals and values, it creates a level of peacefulness. We then don’t have to work as hard at the relationship, boundaries are rarely crossed, and there is a genuine mutual level of respect for each other. In these relationships we experience a lot of encouragement, fun and laughter, as well as sincere support. These are the people who we don’t cringe about when we see their name pop up on your caller ID. We are thrilled to speak with them, share exciting news with them, and celebrate with them in their good news!
Then we have the people in our lives who, to put it nicely, stretch us. They sometimes frustrate us, occasionally want to debate with us because they don’t agree about what we believe. These are the people who challenge us and make us think outside our normal way of thinking. Most of the time these people can only be tolerated in small doses to maintain the relationship; but because we ‘love’ them, we make the effort to be there for them as much as we can or need to be…
