(Names of people used in this article are changed to protect privacy)
Siva is a good friend of mine. He is a nice person. He came to USA for working on his job. His wife is in India, taking care of their family business. I know this couple very well.

Being a bachelor, I mostly spend my leisure time with couples because I get lots of free and delicious food. I had many lunch/dinners with them whenever we meet and they seemed to be such a good couple to me. It gives me great warmth seeing their pictures together as they look so happy in each others' presence.

But difficult times do happen. I recently heard that they are planning to take a divorce! Being a close friend of both of them, I felt I had the right to inquire them and found that the reasons are pretty small and they can be easily overlooked with some compassion and understanding. (By the way, compassion is a powerful and wonderful quality. It is much greater than ‘Love’ espescially as what our society defines these days).

I also found that many of Siva's friends are divorced. Probably he too felt there is no big deal divorcing his wife? It turned out to be the same reason.

Nothing can steal your happiness or success from you more than negative people or negative environment! If you have a well balanced life, I mean, good money, good career, good family but if you still have a few negative people who often make you think that you will be in debt if you try to advance in your career, or there is something wrong with you if you are dedicated to maintaining good eating practices, then it does not take any long to deplete your positive energy and make you quit your ambitions.

If we spend more time with negative people, our subconscious mind will start accepting their thoughts slowly and we will start thinking it is OK to do the negative things they do.

Our mind is like a hungry stomach. If we put good food, the digestion will be good and it will feel better. If we put junk food, then there will be uneasiness. If we don't put anything, it just tries to grab whatever it can and more than likely it attracts lot of junk food out there.

We must be very selective at what we feed into our minds so it can stay alive positively and help us get what we want. Keep this in mind as it is really important. We must choose to make some decisions to put necessary positive information into it on regular basis.

You may say that we must have strong determination instead of putting blame on our negative environment. I agree. But it may not be easy for everybody. So it is OK to take help from your strong and positive-attitude friends by spending more time with them.

The effective way (the self part):
Choose positive and healthy-minded people as your friends (Don’t miss reading this article till the end). I don't mean dump all your negative friends. Sometimes it might be just that they are going through hard times.

Research shows that 85% of a person's success and happiness comes mainly from his/her relationship with others. And that's a lot. We live in a highly interdependent society.

I have a cousin who gets happiness from all the small things in life. He is very enthusiastic about how the little plants grow or how the sun stays till about 10 pm in the summer season in Michigan. It gives me great joy to see such people who are full of hope and energy. And it gives me great happiness to be a medium for his goals and projects.

Being with positive people will unlock our creativity to the fullest potential because of the affirmations that we receive from them. It will give us a lot of learning experience which will accelerate our overall growth.

By suggesting one to spend more time with positive people, I don't mean to hang on to good people all the time for their approval. At the end of the day, one must be proactive and independent As Stephen Covey says "Only when you have the power of being truly independent, you can get well in an interdependent world".

The greater way (and giving way):
Once you know that you have enough resources of positive energy, it's time to give and influence others positively! (Actually by giving, your positive energy will be multiplied more and more because when it comes to giving, we seem to get a lot of help from the infinite intelligence and supreme power).

We don’t want to lose any of our good friends to their bad destiny. Let us not leave that bad teenager who is a drug addict or that friend who is depressed because he lost his job. Invite them to your home for a dinner or take them for a walk or a game.

Imagine there are only 7 days to live. What will you do if you realize you got only 7 days to live? Will you judge others, feel depressed OR be compassionate to others, share your joy, treat others with warmth? Think about it. These are all values. Know your values deeply to live the life you want.

Our Gandhiji once said 'Hate the sin, love the sinner'. Practicing forgiveness and compassion will open the doors for us to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Nuren ...
		About the author:
		Nuren likes writing, teaching, people, nature and many kinds of creative work such as photography and design. He is positive, dedicated, open-minded and always looking for a way to learn something new.
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written by a guest , August 10, 2008

Nuren
The article is great. It has a good content. And the example take in nice.
I just thought of this verse "So in everything do to others as you would have them do to u"
Keep up the good work
Glory

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written by Nuren ... , August 10, 2008

Thanks Glory for sharing that quote..that is one of my favorite ones!

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