So you wouldn’t keep returning to a restaurant that kept poisoning you, but you do so with “friends” that do?

So you wouldn’t keep returning to a restaurant that kept poisoning you, but you do so with “friends” that do? This was the question...


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So you wouldn’t keep returning to a restaurant that kept poisoning you, but you do so with “friends” that do?

This was the question I posed to a youth who contacted me recently trying to make sense of his life. Let us call him Charles.

Charles is very bright, from KCSE to university he is scoring top grades. He is also trying to grow a successful business. So what is the problem, I hear you ask?

Put simply, Charles knows he cannot serve two masters; he either works or plays but his business will suffer if he continues with his campus social antics. He has very good business ideas but just lacks focus – as a youth, he is not alone.

The question then is this: if you know you are surrounded by people who are trying to distract you from success, trying to tempt you with silly vices, constantly reminding you that You Only Live Once (YOLO), as if life is about being high & drunk 24/7, why then are people so weak not to walk away from such detractors? Like I ask above: you would NEVER in a million years, return to a restaurant that kept serving you food that makes you sick but with “friends” (and notice I put friends in quote for they are only friends in your eyes and no one else’s), you keep going back for more.

A good friend is one who calls you but when you tell them that you are studying, or working, they immediately cut the call short as they encourage you to keep on working hard and that you can call them back when you have a moment. A good friend will not tempt you to toss aside your books or customers, so you can join them at the latest club or what ever other distractions they recommend. Any friend who accuses you of snobbery because you no longer hang out with them, that you have “forgotten your roots” is no friend of yours. What they are saying is: How dare you not remain in this cesspit with the rest of us? We are all from the same background, how dare you think you are better than us?

Let me tell you something my friend, ‘Misery Loves Company’ hence why poisonous people want you in the pit with them. Nothing makes them more uncomfortable that someone trying to better their life. So, keep working hard my friend, avoid poison and focus, focus, FOCUS. For nothing beats clean success!

 

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