By the company we keep and avoid.

Have you ever noticed how some parents are so carefull about who their children are hanging out and always judge and be suspicious about their friends. How right are they! Our friends do affect our behaviours. Our being depends a lot on the people we be with. It really does.

If we start hanging out with criminals, we'll begin to understand their particular logic for the way they behave and their particular decisions. We might become convinced. We hang out with very simple people, we observe how simple things honestly make them happy and become convinced with the simplicity. Of course there are exceptions, the people who want something particular and won't be convinced with anything but what they set as standards. But as children, its right to keep the surroundings of the impressionable minds in check.

As we grow up we develop our own ideas of what life means to us. How certain things are done. But our standards or right and wrong may be wrong. We are just exploring just like everybody else is. So we should choose our company wisely. See what other people are doing. People who are doing well. Maybe they have explored life in a more creative way than we have. Or maybe they have explored an end we never paid any attention to. Or maybe they can help us understand some things that we dont. Be with creative people and even if you aren't so creative yourself, after sometime you would see that the solutions you begin to come up with are seen as pretty creative by someone else. Thats the power of company.

Also other people's response to us varies by the company we keep. If we hang out with hoodlums, we would be thought of as one of them. We would be treated as one. So as important as it is to keep the right company, it is equally important to avoid the wrong. Our individuality might be what it is. But it is also important for our individuality to be packaged right and marketed right. Being with the people who have something to give to us, we sometimes get opportunities that are not available otherwise.

Like the old saying goes:

"A man is known not only by the company he keeps, but also by the company he avoids."