Those who surround you have a much greater effect on so much more of you than you might believe. Motivational speaker Jim Rohn would often repeat the adage: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” He also claimed: “show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.” The wisdom of these ideas has played out across countless lives, and been echoed in statements by more recent thinkers, such as author and speaker Tim Ferriss. It’s actually a very old idea. The ancient Stoic Epictetus wrote:
“It is inevitable if you enter into relations with people on a regular basis...that you will grow to be like them. Place an extinguished piece of coal next to a live one, and either it will cause the other one to die out, or the live one will make the other reignite.”
The differences between any two people create a gravitational pull towards a sort of multi-person equilibrium. The differences between individuals are so extensive that it is essentially impossible that any person will be significantly like you. The people around you will draw you up in the ways they are better than you, and down in the ways they are worse. You will do the same to them. You can fight the influence, but its constancy will always have a long-term effect.
When someone is better than you in something, they will raise your standards for that thing on yourself, whether you like it or not. Most people are more than capable of excusing themselves for thoughts about the possibility of being better, but this all changes in the face of a living example of improvement. In order to maintain a feeling of ease, a person exposed to an example of what is better must change—either by becoming more like the example, or by at least increasing the value they appraise in that person. Human nature would prefer to do neither, as the first requires work and the second requires adopting a lower selfvaluation. Most people respond to examples of improvement by removing them—either through ignoring the invitation, ghosting the individual, or artificially reducing their example through intentionally misrepresenting their character to others.
The best friends you can have are the best people you can find who will tolerate you. These people don’t have to live in your area. In fact, they don’t need to be living at all. Modern technology and media gives all people the opportunity to connect with people who live far away in time and space through biographies, videos, and interactive settings.
Your efforts to find and befriend those who are better than you will have a greater effect on improving yourself than any direct efforts you make to do the same. Whatever temporary discomfort you experience in their presence is merely a signal of ways in which you can improve.
The second best kinds of friends you can have are those who can receive the greatest good from your own example, but you have to realize the cost that this incurs to you. In the best case, they will create a great deal of friction in your life as they present constant mental and emotional costs to you as you attempt to tactfully encourage them toward improvement. In the worst case, they will respond to your efforts by doing to you and saying about you terrible things that are far worse than you deserve. Since the odds of benefit are low and the risks of maltreatment are high, you may ask why anyone would bother being a friend to someone who might benefit from their example.1 The answer is that while great joy comes from improvement of self, the only joy greater comes from improving others at cost to self.
Footnotes
- 1. As has been said by others, if you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room. ↩