How Not To Be A Pussy: Part 2 Tighten Up Your Circle

I want you to take just a minute to count all your friends. Some of you might go to your social media and say well it says I have 5,000 friends. So, let us take a little more time and count out those on your social media that you have talked to in the last month. How many of those 5,000 did you lose? My guess on the generous side is 3/4 of them. Now we are at 1250, which is a very generous number. If you want to count a very successful social media presence you could get that many clicks, likes, or comments. Now let us break it down a few more times. Take away all the people you hang out with regularly. You know, grilling out, working out together, or anything that draws you together with friends then you will probably have 30 people. Break it down one more time and take away those if you called today and said I need your help moving all of my belongings right now to a new house, how many would show up? For argument's sake, we will say 5. For some of us more and some of us less would show up but now let's say your family is in imminent danger and you call those 5 and say I need your help, my daughter was sexually assaulted and I killed the guy. I do not trust calling the cops because nowadays doing the right thing still lands you in prison and my family needs me. How many people could you call to help you dispose of the body? This is a crazy situation, right? It will never happen to you, right? I am using this simply as an example of how tight is your circle? Ultimately, the question is what are you trying to get out of life? Clicks on your social media for validation? 10,000 friends on social media who comment they are praying for you but not lifting a finger to help you in a moment of need? I use this extreme analogy to awaken your definition of friends. WHY SHOULD YOU TIGHTEN UP YOUR CIRCLE? When you tighten up your circle you are saying I have prioritized my life. I can clearly say these are the people in my life that matter. You are shedding dead weight and the attention given to those that matter is really important. Go back to the sexually assaulted daughter, I am sure with the internet we have all stumbled across the story where someone did kill their daughter's assailant and I am sure most of us have said we would do the same thing. Yeah, we can all act like a badass and say “hell yeah,” I would have done the same thing? Actions over words are what I am emphasizing in this article. If you spread yourself so thin among a bunch of people, can you care about that individual who needs you? This is not the popular opinion today but you cannot care about everyone! Case and point, we would be volunteering our time in the community every day doing whatever we could for people. Physically this would be impossible to meet every need both in time and finances. HOW TO TIGHTEN UP YOUR CIRCLE? Make a list of the people that you care deeply about, then simply prioritize your investments. I have a buddy named Dan who works in investments. Super good dude to talk to and helps me stay level-headed in my decision-making. If I took $10,000 to him and told him to spread it out everywhere he would body slam me out the door of his office. ( He could do it too.) But if I took that $10,000 and told him to put it into a portfolio of the latest and greatest upcoming companies I would see a return on my investment. That is what we are all doing in life with my emphasis on the value of your time! You get one life and we act like college kids on a weekend at the bar. We are binge drinking ourselves out of life. So, make a list of the most important things in your life. Start with something that is always thicker than water, our family. Start with your family and add to that list. Ask yourself hard questions because it is through hardship that we progress. A favorite quote of mine is “I never saw a wild thing feel sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.” ― D.H. Lawrence. So, if you are not going to feel sorry for yourself, do not feel sorry for the people you are about to cut out of your life. Then make a list of the people you spend most of your time with and then write down what you do with and for those people. Formulate the conclusion of your list. Are those people on that list helping make you a better person, husband, and provider for your future? If the answer is no then they do not make the circle. In closing, You will constantly have to revisit this process because if you are human, you will meet new people and have old people leave. Don't be a pussy and feel like you have to please everyone. Only pick those you can see a return on your investment.