The company we keep

There is a frog story that has stayed with me over the years. It is not a story of the frog that turned into a prince; rather it is of one which died in hot boiling water. It is said that this particular frog entered into a pot full of water, and someone put that pot on top of a fire. The water was getting warm but the frog did nothing to get out of the pot, although it could. It is said that the frog was trying to cool its body temperature as the water was getting warmer, or perhaps it was too comfortable at first, to get out. Eventually when the water was too warm to bear, the frog had expended all of its energy in trying to cool itself down that it had no more energy to jump out. It was boiled alive.
Psalm 1:1 (RSV) says that, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
Blessed? Why blessed? It is because the company we keep has the power to shape us. Often times you can judge a person simply by looking at the kind of friends he/she surrounds him/herself with. In this day and age even our online friends matter a lot in this.
For instance, we have a lot of social groups, and we spend quite a considerable amount of time online on different social platforms interacting with our friends. People in these groups chat (discuss) about many matters great and small, and often times they even offer all sorts of advice.
That is why this matters a great deal the kind of people you involve yourself with in these social platforms. If you have, on your social media groups, a number of friends who are always chatting and discussing disagreeable things, you will not agree with them initially but if you do not escape their virtual presence you will be affected by what they write in one way or another. You may think that you have your own set of beliefs and principles and you hold on to them, but if you keep chatting about nonsensical things your mind will slowly start to get used to them and eventually this will wear away at your beliefs and principles. You will eventually become like these people.
Therefore, it is important to ensure that you keep good company, even online. Choose your groups wisely. Exit from groups you know will not build your character and (if you must) join groups of people that you want to be like.
Going back to the frog story, it's easy to become complacent with the friends you have until your morals are corrupt, its even easy to use so much energy to keep your values around toxic friends, before you run out of energy and all life is taken away from you, change your friends. Don't wait for the water to reach boiling point. Change your environment, change your friends, change your social media friends if they do not promote positive growth.

Until next time.
Haika Auguli Callist