You’ve probably heard the sayings about how we’re a combination of the people we spend the most time with.

I remember when I was in school, especially in high school, and I had some friends who were top students. These friendships kind of withered because I didn’t have the study skills or motivation to keep up. 

I struggled in college. A combination of those poor study skills, untreated migraines (there’s a whole blog post right there) and a variety of other contributing factors. I was persistent enough, and I graduated, but it was rough.

Many years later I went back to study a program based on Chinese medicine, but this time I made a point of learning to be a better student. 

I found a group of study partners, some of them even reminded me of those kids who did well in high school. This time I could keep up. I got straight A’s for the first time in my life, which was a big deal because I found Chinese medicine as hard to learn as my modern physics courses from years before.

We had a mix of students in our group. The way the programs worked, people often formed little cliques based on when they started. This meant that not everyone in a clique had the same level of commitment or interest.

There was another group that had started at a different time, but we shared several courses. We felt like we were the cool kids, definitely cooler than the other group. 

We had one student in our clique/study group who may have had challenges at home. They might have had some kind of learning difference. I’m not completely sure, but it felt like we spent time catching them up rather than moving forward, and this caused friction. 

One member of our group was a bully. I didn’t recognize it yet. To me this person was a friend, we sometimes got a little gossipy. He was a solid student and became a reference point I used in challenging myself to be a better student, and that was valuable to me. 

He would blurt out unkind and judgemental things. I would sometimes be embarrassed, I would often laugh it off as if he hadn’t said something horrible. Naturally these comments would reinforce the idea that we were the cool kids (did I mention we were adults? Yeah, well, we were, even though we didn’t always act like it).

This gradually escalated to us being the bullies at the school. I enjoyed not being a target, since I was part of the  c̶o̶o̶l̶ ̶g̶r̶o̶u̶p̶ bullying-group. I chose not to see my involvement because I was getting these terrific grades, and I had friends. Most of our group was silent, which we know enables a bully, but I actually participated in some of the unkind behavior. 

I remember this one time I was joining right in with our chief bully. We were bad-mouthing that student in our group that we looked down on. We were talking about how ‘this student must not even try’ and making childish jokes about them. 

We were in a break room next to a room we’d just left as we each finished a test. The student we were ridiculing was still in the testing room. A student named Cassy from the other group came in and called us out. I’m naming her because she was the person who stood up to us. She spoke the truth that needed to be spoken. She was the one with a spine.

Cassy said that they could hear everything we were saying through the walls. She made it clear that we were being bullies. It was my wake up call.

Anytime a student from our group distanced themselves, our chief bully would start to target them. Sometimes even starting a prolonged smear campaign against them.

I slowly distanced myself, and the bully found a new partner in crime. When I finally mustered the courage to break off the friendship with the bully, I emailed the bully, telling him off. 

I wasn’t really surprised when one of the enabling members of the group let me know the bully had been going around sharing the email with anyone who would sit still to hear his spin. His take was that I was the bully for calling him out. 

He shared it with students, teachers, administrators, literally everyone he could get to listen to his version of events. I thought what I said in the email was much less embarrassing than the way I’d participated in and enabled the bullying.

The people in our group stayed friends with him, even though they knew exactly what kind of person he was. I was done enabling and being friends with enablers, my friendships with the rest of the group never felt good after that. Those friendships died off, and that’s okay with me.

I saw the truth in that statement that we become like the people we spend the most time with. I think we’d all like to believe that who we are is more concrete than that, that we are less malleable than that. We’d like to think we aren’t easily influenced by who we spend time with, but if you spend time with people who act like jerks, you’re probably being a jerk too.

After that, I began seeking friendships with people who have more of the qualities I want to cultivate in myself.  It’s an ongoing process. Sometimes it takes me a while to see through a person’s facade.

With what’s going on in the world right now, I think it’s a good time to take a look at how we’re each acting. Are we contributing to the toxic culture that we’re seeing, particularly in the United States?

Do you have influences in your life who bring out something other than the best in you? Do your friendships nourish you? Or do they deplete you? Making deliberate decisions on who we spend our time with has a big impact on who we will be in the future. 

What qualities do you want to cultivate in yourself? Choose wisely.

*typos and errors provided for your entertainment.