Article 027

The kind of company you keep has major impact on whatever you achieve or become in life. Though planets don’t have light of their own, they shine as they keep company with stars and reflect their light.

Having bad company is one such negative habit which may destroy all your positive habits with time. Lions keep company with lions and not with jackals. People on the path of divinity don’t keep company with corrupted people as the latter may corrupt them also. Wise men keep company with the wise and they don’t keep company with fools. A wise man may seldom get any wisdom from a fool whereas he may learn useless things which may diminish his wisdom.

Likewise, brave keep company with brave, intelligent keep company with intelligent and a number of other type of people keep company with similar type of people. This is because all such people need specific types of positive energies to maintain and/or increase their specific abilities. The best sources of such specific energies are the people who have similar interests and some of whom may be more advanced in their relative fields. It means a wise man may become wiser if he keeps company with people who are wiser than him or who are wise in general. This way, they may share similar types of energies and each one of them may benefit.

On the other hand, if you keep company with people who have specific types of negative energies which are the opposites of those that you have, you may witness significant reduction in your positive energies. This is because such negative energies may specifically counteract your positive energies. Taking an example, suppose you start spending time in the company of someone who is lazy and selfish whereas you are active and kind.

Laziness lies in opposition to activeness; and selfishness is the opposite of kindness. It means these two specific energies in his aura may try to counteract two specific energies in your aura. The converse is also true. It means his aura may try to make you lazy and selfish whereas your aura may try to make him active and kind. If your aura is much stronger than his, one such person may not be much of an issue.

However, if your aura is not that strong and/or if you keep company with a number of such people; you may start losing your positive energy. Looking at real life incidents, you may wish to engage in activities and such friend may wish to relax. You may wish to engage in acts of kindness whereas he may tell you and show you otherwise. If this continues, it may cause problems for you.

Likewise, for each positive quality of yours, there may be people who have negative qualities lying exactly opposite to such quality. When you keep company with a number of people who have negative auras; they may counteract most of your positive energies. Some of them may lack confidence, some may lack courage, some may be greedy, some may be selfish, some may be lazy, some may lack discipline and some may have negative attitudes. Hence together they may cause serious damage to your aura. Therefore, it is wise to stay away from company of negative people and keep company with positive people.

Positive people may have various types of positives energies which may make them kind, active, disciplined, courageous, wise, intelligent and confident among many other things. Hence you may gain such energies through their auras as well as through activities that you may perform in their company. For example, you may learn to be more disciplined in the company of someone who’s duly disciplined. Likewise, you may become more courageous in the company of someone who’s courageous. The same holds for most other positive qualities.

Therefore, it is the time to analyze the kind of company you keep. If you find out that negative people in your circle are higher or much higher in number than positive people, it is the time to act. Get rid of as many of them as many you can. At the same time, keep looking for people with positive auras and add such people to your circle. Doing so may significantly improve your chances of being a better person. Remember, a man is recognized by the company he keeps.

There may still be some negative people in your circle who you can’t afford to get rid of. Such people may include close relatives or childhood friends who share a lifetime of experiences with you. Hence it may be selfish to break up with them. However, you can make sure that the number of positive people in your circle is much higher than that of negative people. As far as close relatives and friends are concerned, try to help them become positive. This way, they’ll improve and as they improve, you also gain since the number of positive people around you increases and that of negative people decreases.

Another habit which may prove troublesome is that of having little company. It means you don’t have healthy amount of people in your circle, including your close relatives and friends. If this is your problem, start working on it and make new friends. The world is full of various types of positive people and you can’t afford the luxury of missing most of them. As you add more and more positive people to your circle, you may gain more and more positive energy. Since various people may carry different types of positive energies, they may add many types of positive energies to your aura; through their company as well as through activities.

In order to begin this practice, simply start interacting with more and more people. For example, start interacting with your office colleagues, your neighbors, your school or college mates, parents of your son or daughter’s friends and many other such people who keep meeting you from time to time but you really don’t do much effort to catch up with them. You may think that most of these people are not worthy of being your friends. However, you should give each one of them fair chances so that you may get to know them better.

You may find out that many of these people are good or very good but they were reserved, just like you. Hence you couldn’t see their inner sides from distance. However, once you got closer, you witnessed a number of positive shades in their characters. Hence start such interactions by taking a step forward. Many of them may be good but hesitant to make the first move. Interact with them and then decide. Keep the ones you find worthy and leave the ones who are negative.

This process may be hard and tiring in the beginning but the rewards may be well worth the efforts. Suppose you interact with 10 people and you are able to add only one good person to your circle. If it so happens, even then you’re benefitting. You only need to interact with each one of 9 people 2-4 times before you decide to move away on merit. However, the one person that you’ve gained through the process may stay with you and enrich you for the rest of your life. Hence on this path; failures don’t repeat whereas success stories do.

Therefore, if you need 10 good friends, all you need to do is interact with about 100 people; spread over a period of time. With time and effort, you may have more positive people around you and you may all benefit from one another.

Hence start interacting with people and begin this beautiful journey of making more friends. During this journey, take those people with you whom you find good and positive enough to be your friends and leave those people behind who are only likely to pull you back through the negativity they have.

 

Himanshu Shangari