The people around me didn’t just keep me company. They built me.

By Blood

My mother birthed 3 boys into this world. I was the first, but not the most or least important.

We were taught to treat each other equally, including my sister. They looked up to me, but I looked up to her.

We went through a lot. We walked the streets. We saw crack destroy our neighborhood, our mother, and their father, but most importantly, our home.

Regardless, we always did and still do love each other.

I worry about them still. There has always been a cloud over us. We still survive.

I often worry when my mom is calling me. I worry it could be a call saying one of them is gone.

Like when my sister died.

But they’re grown. They need to be responsible for themselves.

By Choice

When it came to making friends, some bonds went beyond that. Cell, Cade and J provided an escape I never knew I needed.

With Cell and Cade, we would waste away time and melt into the TV, repeating every line, especially if we liked it.

We needed each other. To heal. We didn’t know it then, but it is likely why we are all able to survive and thrive.

I looked this up, because I wanted to know if that was just something I tell myself.

It isn’t. Researchers went through 148 studies covering more than 300,000 people and found that people with strong social relationships were about 50% more likely to survive than people without them. They said the effect was comparable to quitting smoking.

There’s another study that hit closer. It looked at people who went through hard childhoods and found that the ones who had solid support in adulthood didn’t carry the same mortality risk as the ones who didn’t.

So when I say Cell and Cade helped me survive, I don’t mean it as a figure of speech.

Speaking for myself, I hated everything. I wanted people to hate everything just like me, and I did more than project that. I applied it.

With them though, it taught me to let go, and enjoy life.

I find myself doing this much more now, while also talking to them, and others who sometimes need a helping hand, ear or word.

Our Friends

For all of us, the friends we chose reflect what we want to be.

They also mirror, or counter, our positives and negatives.

If you’re a smoker, your friends are likely smokers. I said that before I knew there was proof of it.

There is. A study out of Framingham followed more than 12,000 people for over 30 years and found that smoking clustered through social networks up to three degrees out. Not just your friends. Your friends’ friends’ friends. And when people quit, they quit in groups.

Now, the researchers will tell you it’s hard to separate two things: whether your friends changed you, or whether you picked friends who were already like you. Probably both. But either way, the pattern is real and it’s been measured.

This is why our circle gets smaller the older we get. It’s not just about people going away. It’s finding people that you enjoy being around, but who also enjoy being around you.

That one has a name too. Researchers tracked people over years and found our networks grow through young adulthood and then shrink from there. But here’s the part I didn’t expect: it’s the outer ring that thins out. The close ones stay. And the people who prune that way report feeling better, not worse.

So the shrinking isn’t loss. It’s selection.

This is how a bond helps us develop who and what we become.

Take advantage of it, but also, reciprocate. We don’t have to be angry if we disagree, but understand that the people who love us want to help us.

Developing My Values

My values are directly reflected in the people I love who I spend time with, talk with, and learn from.

My cousin Jason often tells me how he listens, absorbs and adapts. So do I when he speaks.

Older or not, there is a lot to learn from the people we love. I listen to him, his wife, and his children. They are all my resources for becoming a better person.

I just hope I can do the same for them, and I hope they appreciate it.

We should all do the same for the ones we care about. Help them as they help you.

Your path to improving self often starts externally.

| Developing a Bond to Overcome Pain – Latrelle | Social Relationships and Mortality Risk – PLOS Medicine |