Raising The Level Of The Company You Keep

My facebook friend's list is extensive. There are very few 'friends' I haven't met in person. Oddly, I tend to run into those people after friending them on FB. It is truly collection of people I have met through my extensive travels.

In my younger days, I would have tried to hang with as many of those friends. As an adult, with a much stronger commitment to my priorities, I know that is not a great idea. Better than that, it's a horrible idea.

When I was younger I just liked the energy of being around different people. It didn't matter what kind of energy it was as long as I felt it. That has led me on an interesting journey. Today, I am more focused. The direction I head in is much more important. My 'friends' are all headed in a good direction. Everyone is not headed in MY direction. Even if you are on my level, or above, if you're not going my way, your energy could be a distraction to me. I have enough distractions.

Then there is the question of being on my level.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In organizations/groups/social circles the only way to be on the same level is to lower one's standards. We tend to get caught up in the big fish small pond scenario. We stand out when we hang out with smaller people. We forget that we are stuck in the small pond with big dreams. My realization came in the midst of being compared to someone I considered a low-life. I had been a genius among morons when I knew my genius is much greater than
that. I am a man among men. I stand out in any crowd. It's worth it for me to pursue crowds of higher standards since I know I will continue to stand out.

In real estate, a good buy is the worst house in a good neighborhood. Some of us make the bad buy of the best house in a bad neighborhood. In the good neighborhood, the property values will continue to rise in the short term. In the bad neighborhood, the values will drop and may never rise, even in the long term...



Check your neighborhood.

My journey has taken me to the lowest of lows. I thrived. I have thrived in the middle. As I continue my forward and upward momentum, I continue to thrive. However, my momentum has slowed as I have tried to raise up people around me at the expense of my own progress and at the expense of their progress as well. By not moving on, I was blocking the way for
people around me to follow my path.

To be specific, I fell for the "book smart vs street smart" bullshit so many people came up with when threatened by my intelligence. To put people at ease, I lowered myself. I even ventured out to become "street smart." At the end of That journey, being "street smart" is really dumb. Or, at least, the way I went about it was. Almost as dumb as joining a gang. I became affiliated with criminals.

It was when my affiliations with other intellectuals became threatened when I noticed that I had weakened myself to essentially fit in...

The worst part of lowering one's self is not the loss of identity or lack of growth. It's the cost to the community at large. In addition to losing friends/associations, my community lost a leader for great while. I see the effects of my disappearance all over. In my family, in the family I was meant to build. In my community. In my nation. In so many places I see the my world missing out on its potential because I have been missing out on mine. Even now that I am rebuilding so many pieces of my life, I still have so much more work to do because of the work I didn't do when I was being less than me.

And I see this all over in so many areas. The tendency is to lower one's self to match the company we have instead of finding new company. By halting our own growth we are validating the stagnation of the people around us. The saddest part is saying we believe in abundance and growth and not allowing our own self to grow. Our world won't grow if we don't.

So I commit myself to growth so whole hearted that many associations will pass away to make room for new company. I'll get out of my own way so that the people around me can grow on their own. Don't worry! I'll leave plenty of bread crumbs and detailed notes along the way.

I'm just going where I should be so that my family, my community, my nation and my country can go where they will be as well.

It's time to break some cycles...