Don't hang out with a bunch of people who drag you down when you can hang out with one person who makes you feel good.
Interpretation
Surround yourself with positive influences instead of negative ones.
This quote emphasizes the importance of choosing friends who uplift and support you rather than those who bring negativity into your life. It highlights that quality of relationships is more important than quantity, urging individuals to seek out connections that enhance their well-being and happiness.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, one might say this quote to inspire attendees to evaluate their friendships.
Whereas a lot of Buddhism concerns itself with stages of enlightenment, various precepts and moral codes, and even power structures and hierarchies, Zen is just like, 'Shut up, sit down, and observe your thoughts - oh, and by the way, what you perceive as you' doesn't actually exist.' I loved the minimalist approach of it.
I think people who become compulsive about fitness or eating right, a lot of the time it's out of fear that they're going to lose control or that they're not good enough, so I think anything done out of fear or motivated by fear is often unhealthy.
Many people come to self-help material because they feel like something is wrong with them or the way they are. The problem is that anything that tells you how to improve your life is also implying that there is something inherently wrong with you the way you are.
The first and perhaps most important thing to realize about being happier in life is to stop trying to be so happy in life.
Writing/reading is like visiting another person's brain. And a short book or article is like a short stay. You come in, have a coffee, talk about the weather or sports, and then move on.
I think humility - which I think is a very good value to adopt - is basically an extension of understanding your own ignorance.
There is something about building up a comradeship - that I still believe is the greatest of all feats - and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It's the intense effort, the giving of everything you've got. It's really a very pleasant sensation.
You should be nicer to him,' a schoolmate had once said to me of some awfully ill-favored boy. 'He has no friends.' This, I realized with a pang of pity that I can still remember, was only true as long as everybody agreed to it.
The act of quiet nighttime talking, illustrates for me more than anything else the curious alchemy of companionship.
I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.
Regard as your most faithful friends, not those who praise everything you say or do, but those who criticize your mistakes.
No-one can replace Richard Wright - he was my musical partner and my friend.
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