Have you ever noticed that no matter what your interests are, the people you hang around with share most of your interests too? It is likely that if you are into sports, social settings, or getting your education, most people around you are too. I think of it this way, ‘No matter where I go, there I am’. What used to surprise me is how flexible, yet at the same time rigid people around me are.
Not everyone, but almost everyone I interact with during my day is a reflection of me. If I am happy and content, most of the people I come into contact with are happy and content. If I am feeling edgy because of too much going on in my day, or I did not get enough sleep the night before, more people around me seem to be edgy or grumpy too.
This observation makes my world, and my perception of my world very fluid. Why is whatever I think and feel reflected back to me? I think it is the concept of like attracts like in action. Most people go through their day and their lives reacting. If you treat someone a certain way, they normally respond the same way to you. If I am upbeat and happy, most people try to be as upbeat and happy as they can to me. Now take out the pancake syrup, spread it on your hands, and wait until it starts getting sticky, because sometimes it does get sticky, and mucky, and just plain ugly.
I do not recommend really you try this, yet I think you would be surprised at the results if you did. Be the polar opposite of who you are for a week or more. Be your complete opposite and see what happens. You will find after a while, major changes begin to happen in your world. People that know you well will mention the changes they see in you in you, and assume it is temporary for a time. Strangers who of course do not know you, will be much quicker to react to the new you. A second change you will notice is that your world will begin to evolve to meet your new expectations. If life has been wonderful, you will notice it slowly becoming difficult, and if life has been bitter, it will slowly get happier. People and surroundings change when you do, just not at the same speed. You can not be happy and have the world against you. Nor can you be grumpy and everything is peachy.
It is the same principle with habits, and social groups. If you drop a habit, or drop out of your social group, do not expect your world and everyone in it to immediately embrace the new you. It just will not happen that quickly. Whenever you change something in your self, start something different, you can expect the world to change, mostly it changes slowly, but it will change.
This is why many experts generally recommend that you give any life changes three to five weeks to become permanent. The whole fabric of your life has to change to suit your new expectations of your life, and that does not happen over night. What do you do in the meantime, how do you get through a change when everything pulls at you to go back to where you started from?
Don’t quit, you are almost there when you actually start making a change. The word, ‘abide’ comes to my mind. It is much easier to make changes knowing that changes take time, and all you need do is wait. You simply abide, and look forward to changes in your world to catch up with you. Once you understand all you need do is abide, the world becomes a different, simpler place during times of change. All the stress, and tension of not having your old habit, or social group you knew you should not have been with in the first place is gone. It is like wrapping up in a warm blanket on a cold night. Just pull the blanket around you closer, snuggle, and wait for your life changes to complete.
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