You are a product of your environment.

So am I.
Everybody is.

There are so many sayings that talk about associating yourself with people you want to be like, or surrounding yourself with success...every one making the point that you are who you hang out with.  You can make a pretty good judgement call on who a person is and what their character is like based off of who their friends are.  Successful people hang out with successful people. Lazy people hang out with other lazy people. And so on and so forth.

But I don't think it's just who you actively and consciously choose to spend your time with. I have begun to realise that even people you spend a lot of your time with tend to rub off on you if you aren't consciously aware and choosing to become the person you want to be. This means you can be pretty strongly influnced by people like your coworkers or your roommates.

If you work with people who are consistently negative and complain all the time, chances are high that you'll start to develop that same mindset. If you live with people who are home all the time and forever watching tv and never going out and getting things done, you will follow suit. On the other hand, if you live with roommates who are constantly active, going out and doing things in their spare time, and are only ever really home to eat and sleep, chances are, you'll begin to follow that lifestyle as well and your productivity may increase more than what it already is.

I can't say I have ever fully, consciously surrounded myself with people I want to be like. But I know I choose the people that I want to be involved in my life pretty carefully. Partly because I like to have close, intimate friendships. And partly because I want to have people in my life who will encourage me, help me grow, point me towards Christ, and correct me when I'm wrong because they love me too much to leave me the way I am.

But I have also actively chosen to be alone. To often keep to myself, and keep the time I spend with others to a minimum. Of course, there are a lot of factors that go into that decision. For one, I don't want to forget who I am. And I know that if I spend a lot of time with other people, I begin to lose sight of myself. I begin to take on their traits and become someone other than me. I also am self-motivated (on my good days). I know that at the end of the day, it's always going to be just me. Just me, in the sense that I am reaponsible for me and the choices I made that day and the actions I decided to put forth. I can't put the blame on other people for my failures, I can't say it was someone else's fault that I didn't get done what I had planned for the day. It all falls back on me. And if I spend time with people who do not hold themselves accountable, who give in to being lazy or putting off today what they can do tomorrow, than I begin to be like that as well. And since it is hard to find disciplined, structured people who are like me, I try ro limit how much time I spend with those who won't exactly help me maintain that lifestyle.

Don't misunderstand me. I still love people and I want to be someone who influences them to do better. But if I begin to be more like them than they are like me, that's when I need to step back and reevaluate. Am I strong enough to continue to spend time with them? Are they rubbing off on me and am I slacking because I'm influenced by them? Where is my responsibility in this and how can I make it better?

We are products of our environments, yes.
But we cannot let that be an all-encompassing excuse for why we are the way we are.
You alone are responsible for your actions and your choices; which means you alone are who you report to at the end of the day if you've failed to do what you set out to do.
So you need to consciously make the choice who you allow near to you and how much time you spend with them.
And see where you go from there.

I don't know about anyone else out there, but I want to work as hard as I possibly can. I want to be disciplined, I want to willingly sacrifice the now for the long-term satisfaction and goals, I want to thrive and succeed.
I want to see if I can do that on my own and not be influenced by those around me.
But I also want to make sure I surround myself with people who will push me and inspire me and motivate me to do better.


I guess we'll see as time goes on who I turn out to be.

(If you have the time, read this great article that talks about surrounding yourself with people who hold you to a higher standard.)