A very simple idea has been jumping around my head, reaching all tiny corners, playing around with my thoughts, and the more I've entertained it, the more it made sense. It's hardly revolutionary but I'll share it with you anyway.
Friends. Why, yes, it is that simple. I personally think of it in terms of physics, because this is how it makes sense to me. Imagine a see-saw. One one side we have the things in our life which are a given, and on the other side, to balance out, are those things which we choose to introduce to our life. At least roughly, they have an equal weight. Seen as we only choose our friends, because our family, our relatives, our school are chosen for us, the only thing that we choose must have an equal effect on who we become as a person, to the effect of other few things combined. Of course, in the early stages of development, the environment and the parents will have more of an impact but after we go to school, we make our own life.
It sometimes scares me that it is such a random, arbitrary choice. Not only are friends and contacts based on location, they are based on something as silly as who you sat next to that first day of school. Not always, but very often. The first day of high-school, the group of 20-odd people that would from then on be my class was asked to split into two groups-boys and girls- and then arrange according to height. Thus, two by two, we ended up sitting next to each other, and the boy I sat next to is one of my best friends. We share a lot, despite having different interests, different views on religion, different views on family. Now that I think about it, and, scarily, this is the first time I do think about it in such depth, we have no obvious reason to be as good friends as we are. Yet... it is 9 years, 7 months and 11 days later (the lovely soul read this and corrected my maths!) and I still consider him one of my best friends. Charming, how much chance shapes our life.
When I sat down to write this, it wasn't chance that I wanted to talk about but somehow I ended up here, the topic took me by surprise. I guess occasionally, writing will do that to you, it will take you somewhere you didn't know you wanted to go.
What I wanted to say, and I will only say it briefly now, is that who you choose as your friends may be the most important choice you'll ever make. It's not who you marry. Friends will be there before you meet your partner, when you expect your child, when you get divorced and when your parents pass away. If you choose them wisely. Friends are your real partners for life. They can support you but they can also drag you down- so often you see "good" people in "bad"situations, and you wonder how they ended up there. Likely, because of a friend they are close to but who is a bad influence. Just as much, a friend can rehabilitate you when you've lost your way. Some friends will try to put you down so they can shine, and like a Eurhythmics song, some will use you, others will be used by you. You may be in a situation where you find that you're tempted to compare yourself to your best buddy and think "well, at least I am better than him", and I am not sure who that is worse for. Friendships, [feminist joke alert!] much like women, will come in all shapes and sizes, and you can probably learn more from the bad friendships.
No discovery of the wheel today, I'm sorry. Just a thought that needed to be said out loud, and a quiet thank you to my partner in life, the friend who has shaped me as a person.
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