A Reciprocal Arrangement

Here's something to consider: If you have a friend whose friendship you wouldn't recommend to your sister, or your father, or your son, why would you have such a friend for yourself? You might say: out of loyalty. Well, loyalty is not identical to stupidity.

Loyalty must be negotiated, fairly and honestly. Friendship is a reciprocal arrangement. You are not morally obliged to support someone who is making the world a worse place.

Quite the opposite.

You should choose people who want things to be better, not worse.

It's a good thing, not a selfish thing, to choose people who are good for you. It's appropriate and praiseworthy to associate with people whose lives would be improved if they saw your life improve.

If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness. They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others and punish you carefully when you do not.

This will help bolster your resolve to do what you should do, in the most appropriate and careful manner.

People who are not aiming up will do the opposite. They will offer a former smoker a cigarette and a former alcoholic a beer. They will become jealous when you succeed,

or do something pristine. They will withdraw their presence or support, or actively punish you for it. They will over-ride your accomplishment with a past action, real or imaginary, of their own.

Maybe they are trying to test you, to see if your resolve is real, to see if you are genuine. But mostly they are dragging you down because your new improvements cast their faults in an even dimmer light.

It is for this reason that every good example is a fateful challenge, and every hero, a judge.

Michelangelo's great perfect marble David cries out to its observer: "You could be more than you are." When you dare aspire upward, you reveal the inadequacy of the present and the promise of the future.

Then you disturb others, in the depths of their souls, where they understand that their cynicism and immobility are unjustifiable.

You play Abel to their Cain. You remind them that they ceased caring not because of life's horrors, which are undeniable, but because they do not want to lift the world up on to their shoulders, where it belongs.

Don't think that it is easier to surround yourself with good healthy people than with bad unhealthy people.

It's not.

A good, healthy person is an ideal.

It requires strength and daring to stand up near such a person.

Have some humility.

Have some courage.

Use your judgment, and protect yourself from too-uncritical compassion and pity.

Make friends with people who want the best for you.