Balanced Life - Bringing Back A Classic

I posted on this one before in the older incarnation of my blog, but it's certainly a good enough one to bring back again. Allen Galbraith goes through his 10 tips on how to lead a balanced life. Heck, I even see my old comment right there from when it was first published! Ahh, the memories of those halcyon days of yore...

It's interesting looking back on this post because in my comment, I say that tip #5 ("Don't buy into the culture around if you don't want to") was the one that stuck out the most, but the more I think about it, the more I think that #7 is pretty critical, "Recognize you have to be healthier than those around you." Why is this one sticking out more than the others?

I think it's because my mind has been thinking more and more about environment and the effect of the people who surround you on your life... the ups, the downs, the failures and the successes. It's something I blogged about just a few days ago here.

While I think most of us (me included) say the brave things like, "I am my own person... what other people do doesn't affect me and my choices", I think that more often than we can admit to even ourselves... those other people do affect us... and probably a lot more than we know. It's not as if we are completely malleable to the will of our friends, family and the dude at Starbucks who puts the extra sprinkle of cinnamon on your Grande low-foam latte. However, the people that surround us every day will have some impact upon us. My thought is that if you are in a rather unenviable balance of being surrounded by more negative people than positive or, those negative people are just louder and more convincing, you'll always have a much harder time at staying in a positive frame of mind. I don't care who you are or how finely honed your mental powers are there, Professor X... it ain't gonna be easy to hold off the marauding horde of doubters and ne'r- do-wells if you are flat out surrounded by those draining SOBs.

Recognizing those others who are the drains is not always easy - they most dangerous ones come in the familiar guise of a good friend or a close family member... but if you stop and take a little bit of time to think about who is in your life and what kind of impact they have upon you... you might be surprised at what you discover. Give it a try since I will be doing that tonight and reporting back later.