Are bad associations spoiling your useful habits?
Bad associations spoil useful habits. I was taught that from an early age. And while the people you spend time with might not necessarily fall into the category of “bad associations” in that they don’t rape, pillage small villages or murder innocent victims, what are they doing to your habits?
How much time are you spending online with your “friends” just hitting the refresh button? Have you exchanged the dramas outside the computer for the dramas in the lives of your “friends” online?
Recently I stopped and reviewed the people I spent the greatest majority of my time associating with online. I realized that for all their conservative labeling, for all their Christian arm-waving, for all their protestations, they were some of the biggest millstones I had voluntarily worn in years.
One morning I woke up early, having problems sleeping and watched the sun rise. In retrospect, I wonder if I had been prompted by a smaller voice because once I saw that sun break over the horizon, it was as if the yoke broke and realization flooded through me. “What am I doing with this group of people?” I knew I would never meet them. I didn’t spend time on the phone with them (but then again, I am not a phone person. I personally am one of those rare people that absolutely abhor wasting time on the phone. I want to do my business and hang up).
Main point of the story is that I literally, figuratively and spiritually woke up! Walking away from that group, I found that troubles that had been nipping at me lifted because I left them behind with the people that carried them. Let me repeat that in a different way: when I walked away from that group, I left behind the thousand little disputes, upsets and the internal dialogs that were prompting me to acknowledge that this group was not healthy for me.
The group that I left had elected themselves watchers. All in all, being a watchtower has the potential to be a noble profession, and we have all seen watcher groups accomplish a great amount of good in this world. Unfortunately, watchtowers swing on a delicate balance, and the move from watchtowers to persecutors is a very short step indeed. And that was the case with this group. I found that had I just listened to my internal dialogue (never ignore your intuition!), I would have recognized much earlier that the watchers had gone from watching to persecution in order to vindicate the group think and confirm for themselves that the mob mentality was right.
What I found is that I did not need to be vindicated. What was right for them was not right for me. The driving need of the group mentality was to be right at all costs, which meant that someone had to be wrong, which leaves no room for forgiveness and no room for compassion.
When I look around and see how much I have accomplished in the short time since walking away, I shake my head in wonder at how quickly we bog ourselves down. What choices are you making in your associations? Are the people you choose to spend your time with building you up? Do you walk away from your time together encouraged?
If you know that the answer is not a positive one, I encourage you to strike out.
This poem has been quoted a thousand million times, but is oh so appropriate here, so please read it slowly just this once:
Sphere: Related ContentTWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(Robert Frost)
