People do not want to be happy, as becoming happy requires you to take action. Miserable people won’t watch a sunset or volunteer at a soup kitchen, even though those activities are proven to increase happiness. Stressed out people aren’t going to meditate.As you work to improve yourself, one thing that you will find is that the world can be divided into three groups of people.
People love being “who they are,” as that requires them to take no effort to change. Avoid those people like the plague, as they are diseased of the mind....
Finding happy friends as a man will be a constant challenge. Finding a happy woman is even harder.
The best strategy to find quality people is to become one yourself while ruthlessly cutting out toxic people, users, and manipulators.
- Those who are indifferent to you. This is the vast majority of people out there.
- Those who will support you. This is, by far, the smallest group.
- Those who will attempt to tear you down. This group isn't huge, but it can be alarming to discover who is in it.
That's why Cernovich is right to tell you to ruthlessly cut them out of your life. It doesn't matter if they are friends or family, if they can't even manage to be neutral towards your efforts at self-improvement, they have to go. There is a word for someone who actively attempts to hinder your efforts and make your life worse, and that word is enemy.
That's the bad news. The good news is that you will make new and better friends, people who are moving forward themselves. In the same way that gym rats tend to bond, people who are active and alive tend to like each other. I hit it off instantly with Mike; I recognized him as someone who was not content to coast, but was intent on achieving more tomorrow than he had today. It wasn't just interesting to talk about his plans with him, it was energizing.
And people like to be energized. So, if you want to improve your own life, learn how to be supportive of others and boost their energy levels, don't be a vampire and seek to boost your own by draining others.