Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.
This is a proverb formulated from a much older proverb. And while I rarely quote scripture, I thought I would add it here, because it shows that we have known for a very long time that we are influenced by the company we keep.
Proverbs 13:20: "The one who walks with the wise will become wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm"
Wisdom is different to intelligence. An intelligent person can poorly apply what they know. A wise person however, uses what they have at their disposal well, they make good decisions. So I am wondering how many of us are making good decisions with the company we keep.
Are you?
Roughly two-thirds of Finnish men are now overweight or obese, and the trend shows little sign of reversing. Since the early '90s, the average weight of military conscripts has risen by eight kilos.
This is taken from the Finnish news today and from my own knowledge base, over the same period of time the average cooper's test distance has dropped by about twenty percent. Obviously, while there is room for error of using BMI as the weight metric, the cooper's test is a pretty good indicator of the condition of men in Finland at the approximate age of 18.5 average. If the increase in weight was due to muscle mass or height change, there is unlikely to be the same drop in the rubbing distance and it might actually go up.
Physical condition is reducing.
No surprise there.
It is obvious that many factors go into producing these poor outcomes, like dietary and movement changes in culture. However, thinking about the "we are what we surround ourselves with" statements, I wonder how much of an effect the people around us have on our individual condition. If we are surrounded by the average and the average is overweight, does that normalize our own opinion about ourselves and does it hold us back from improving, or how much we are willing to improve ourselves?
I suspect so.
Do people who go to the gym generally hang out with other people who go to the gym? Do runners spend more time with other runners, or tennis players with other tennis players? And if this is the case, if society is to reverse the trend bad head back toward healthy lifestyles that lead to better physical, mental, emotional and social outcomes, we would need to address the social circle problem. Because just like a drug addict coming out of rehab, it is unlikely that much change will be made if we surround ourselves with people who have the same issues as us. For a drug addict, the biggest factor for relapse is who they socialist with after getting clean. Wouldn't this be the same for a food addict, or for those who do not move enough?
I was thinking about this in regard to myself and how my retraction from more social life has impacted on my overall health. Before, I spent much more time with people who are active, physically, socially, financially. As a result, I would spend more time surrounded by those aspects too, so would spend more time discussing and operating similarly. Shut away from the social groups though, I have myself become less active and perhaps more accepting of inactivity itself. With fewer people to be around, there are few reasons to be any better.
This might not be the case for everyone, but I believe the majority of us care what others think of us. Everyone wants to be accepted, especially by people close to them, but I am not sure how I would feel if my wife said; "I accept you the way you are, fat, lazy, poorly dressed, unclean, stupid..."
Is that how you want to be accepted?
Or while me, would you rather someone who accepted the current condition, but strived to help you improve? Someone who is willing to help raise you up to reload more of your true potential, than encourage you to stay the same?
If your partner doesn't want you to be the best version of yourself, what does that say?
We are told and I believe we should be intentional with the way we spend our time, what we do, how we act. And I think part of the problem may of us might have is that we do not surround ourselves with who and what supports our growth. Especially now we can so easily pick and choose, we seem to continually pick convenience, which not only holds is back, but as we can see by general health conditions, pushes us backward.
What do you think about your surroundings and are there any changes you could make that would improve your chances for positive growth?
Taraz
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