Preventing Isolation
As one gets older, he or she becomes less concerned with people who were never that close to them to begin with. Weeding out friends, acquaintances and random relationships from one’s life happens much more frequently as one gets older. During your adolescent years, you don’t do as much weeding because you’re too focused on status and popularity.
During adolescence, people hold onto others out of the sake of not sacrificing their image, connections or popularity. Every person may be important in some shape or form. But as one gets older, priorities change and superficial relationships become the last thing that people want to hold onto.
It’s important to keep in mind that you have to be smart when it comes to weeding people out of your life. Weed too little and you’re stuck with toxic folks; weed too much and you risk becoming isolated and lonely. You have to find the happy medium. But keep in mind that weeding is a process that does not always happen naturally.
Sometimes you have to take a step back and reanalyze your relationships: “Is this person even worth being friends with? I always feel kind of insecure and uncomfortable when I’m around them!” You have to learn to protect yourself by removing toxic people from your life, and surrounding yourself with fruitful ones.
Another important point to make is the act of keeping in touch. You have successfully weeded out old friends, but are you even keeping in touch with your current ones? As you get older, it becomes very easy to get lost into your own life, focusing on school, work, family and your significant other, but not enough on your friends.
How about your tennis friends, drinking buddies or even your former schoolmates? Keeping in touch is important because it allows you to reconnect with people outside of your life; it helps prevent isolation. Isolation is not that hard to fall into, but once you’re there, you either hate it or become ironically comfortable with it.
Keeping in touch does take work; nothing comes easy in life, especially when it comes to maintaining relationships. Just because someone is no longer near you or has moved halfway across the country, does not mean that you shouldn’t make an effort to keep in touch with them.
Sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone to keep in touch. But if it prevents you from becoming isolated, then by all means do it.
Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)
DSM (Defeating Stigma Mindfully) 