I know we've all heard this a thousand times before, but it's one of those things that can't be said enough times.

The best way to avoid negative emotions is to avoid those that have them. Negative emotions are very contagious, so if one's life is full of them then it is time to start building a new circle. What is there to learn from someone who is miserable other than the pain of misery? Even sosuave can be a negative feedback loop if one only chooses to listen to the negativity.

OTOH, if a person is surrounded with optimistic people who are expanding their lives to meet their goals, then positive emotions are also contagious. When a person is in a group, he/she will intrnalize some of the group norms even if he conciously tries not to, and what's even more important is those internalized norms, ideas, etc will show up even outside of the group context. Because of consisntency, he/she will have a very hard deviating away from these internalized norms once they are fully set.

All of this means that by finding and hanging out with successful and happy people, one will end up more like those people even if he/she doesn't make an effort to model them.

love the post!
"show me who you walk with and i'll show you who you are"

Absolutely agree.

I used to hang around a couple people and all they wanted to do was sit around an ***** and moan about how the world was keeping them down, everyone else is stupid, how sucky their childhood was, etc...

Everything bad in their life was someone elses's fault.

After a few specific events transpired, I cut them out of my life completely, it's amazing how big of a differance it's made.

My only regret now is that I wish I would have done it 4 years ago, I wish I could have that wasted time back.