Think of Danny Zuko, at the very end of GREASE. Danny has graduated. He’s even lettered. He is moving up, leaving the grease behind. Sandy is a new friend, as well as girlfriend, and he’s taking her example: he’s beginning to use his brain. He’s not leaving Kenickie and Putzie behind, necessarily, but if they continue on the dead-end track, eventually the connection will weaken, even if the affection does not.

Trent, if you’re monitoring these older columns for new comments, what do you think?

I have a few close friends that are very encouraging. One of them even figured out her own debt repayment plan!! We help each other get there. You don’t have to nag them or press them with your thoughts, they will come around eventually when they see how well you are doing! :D

Learn How to Think:
http://www.nazisociopaths.org/modules/article/view.article.php/c1/33

Bill Ross
(Electronics Design Engineer)

I’ve made some drastic changes with respect to my social circle over the last few years and soughty only to associate myself with people who have a positive outlook on life and growth oriented.

It’s crazy how much momentum you can get when you’re aligned with people who share similar beliefs and values.

Nice way to sum up your thoughts on social circles and goals, Trent :)

One of the first lessons I learned on friendships was that life is fluid and sometimes they will change. As a youngster, I had a doppelganger best friend who was closer than a sister. I moved, she moved, we married, had kids, mortgages, jobs…you know, all the blah blah of life. I still see her, not nearly enough, and we can usually catch up fairly well. Funny thing is, she still sees my folks alot and has helped a bunch with some of their needs too. She is actually closer to my mom than to her own…I suppose that if my life were still in the same zipcode as when I was younger, we would still be doppelgangers!

As I have gotten older, I can appreciate the need for more diversity in my friends. I am the one who hold interesting parties because you literally never know who you’ll be talking with. I build big circles! But here is a really cool thing, at least for me to understand…even with literally hundreds of friends, there are only 4 that I would call at 3 in the morning to help! All animals stratify our social relationships and I suppose that classifying our friends is really no different.

I am glad to see that some of the posters have begun to recognize toxicity in relationships and can jettison those folks that are causing / allowing harm.

I hope you all have a blessed day…my thoughts are with you all! Time’

They all chose to move to the big cities, rent apartments and live some kind of high spending party lifestyle.

I was the only one out of my friends who chose to stay in our home town and attend the local university. I work part-time and save pretty much everything I earn. I don’t have rent to pay and the only living expenses I have are food and gas. I also kicked my partying habits because that was not the person I wanted to continue to be and was wasting a hell of a lot of money on alcohol.

As far as I’m concerned, none of my friends are thinking about saving for the future and are living in the moment. Lots of spending on clothes and partying.

The funny thing is, I was the most immature one out of the group during High School. Now I am the most mature. I guess I am deemed ‘too boring’ now because none of them bother to contact me anymore.

To me, they enrich my life in different ways, and as such I value them for their friendship, even if we have radically different goals.

Sure, I have friends who are as keen on building their net worth radically as I am–with those friends we share each other’s goals and discuss about these things.

But there are other friends who are almost always broke and are not really bothered by it. With them, I don’t share my net worth goals or anything–they won’t be interested in it anyway. Just meet up and enjoy the human connection, that’s all–I need a break sometimes from thinking about money and net worth, no matter how much I like it!

“Money gives you more freedom to make choices, but it doesn’t help you make the right ones.”

Quote of the week!!

Of course, that may be the impression they had of you as well! Wouldn’t it be sad if each of you were sitting around that card table thinking, “Man, I wish I could talk to these guys about the book I just read, or how I’d like to get ahead in life. Too bad these none of these guys care about anything except cards and joking around! I should dump them all.”

Been involved in both, unfortunately. Too many folks are too willing to walk in lockstep with each other, changing beliefs and even core values from day to day on the whims of their ‘leaders’.

Of course, I have friends in my circle who belong to major parties and religions (and minor ones as well), but actually involving myself in those activities in search of intelligent, thinking individuals would be time consuming indeed, and life is too short.

I’m very involved with my daughter and husband (as I should be). My husband is a stay-at-home-dad by default — disabled and cannot work. My daughter is exceedingly precocious and requires more time than we ever imagined. It’s a challenge to find areas to keep her mind stimulated and learning and keep her out of boredom.

Following them is my extended family and a couple of ladies who are old enough to be my mother and grandmother, but who are dearly important to me. I think I’ll come back around to a point in time where friendship needs to take more focus in my day-to-day life, but right now my life is very full and enriched as it is.

Great article

Life should be an exchange of new ideas, or there can be no education.

I had a lot of friends who smoked pot (and used other drugs) and partied all the time. None of them were going to college and none seemed to have any long term goals. When I made the decision to go back to school and get my degree, I stopped hanging out with 90% of my friends. I eventually met new, more positive friends who encouraged my long term goals.