How Are Your Friends Contributing to Your Life?
Close friends are invaluable. This does not mean that you cannot appreciate their value.
At least that’s the logic presented by Blue Zones, which claims to be “inspired by the world’s longest-lived cultures” and shares articles and quizzes to “help people live longer and better by improving their environment.” And your friends are the main part of your environment – these are the people with whom we managed to contact at school, at work and in other places where human contact is inevitable. If we are lucky, our friends will appear for us, and we – for them.
But what if your friend takes more from you than he gives? Blue Zone offers on its website a ‘tribe’ assessment checklist , found via Swissmiss, which says:
Research shows that friends can have long-term effects on our health. In fact, if your best friends are obese, you are about twice as likely to gain excess weight. The next exercise is just for you. You don’t have to give it up. You don’t need to share it. This is just an honest assessment for your own consideration.
Quite a strange example, but it is true that there are times when we want to change or improve our life and think about how people in it make it easier and more difficult. The questions in the quiz range from “Over the past month, how often has this person felt sad or depressed?” on “How many sweets or cans of soda does a person eat and drink per day?” to “How often does a person attend religious events?”
You should also answer these questions for yourself and see what you are targeting. There are columns for four friends, and at the end of the assessment, you will confirm what you already know: some friends are very different from you. And some of them may also make your life shorter.