When to Sever a Friendship

The power of your environment is very, very real. Especially with regard to the company you keep.

We tend to talk about this in terms of the positive. You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with so seek those who can elevate you. Awesome. No argument here.

It is equally important, however, to look at the things from the opposite direction:

Negativity in your environment and your circle causes real damage.

We just usually can’t see it.

The insidious nature of “toxic creep” often clouds the objectivity necessary to recognize that certain relationships are doing more harm than good. This is something you’ve got to consciously fight against.

Toxicity affects you in profound ways, from your emotional state to your very perception of reality, and few attributes are more valuable than the perception to recognize it. My struggle with depression has required that I actively cultivate the ability to spot and react to negativity in direct ways.

That often requires severing relationships.

Easier said than done, of course. We’re all resistant to change, no matter how necessary—the lure of the familiar seems preferable to upheaval, leaving us loathe to make the obvious choice.
But we have to. Even if it means excising people from our lives.

Nothing is harder. But nothing is more important.

And nothing I say is going to make it easier. Still, it needs to be done. Culling is absolutely necessary for short-term happiness and long-term growth.

Cutting anyone off is painful, but there’s a silver lining, it’s this: in my experience, there’s an equilibrium to life, and the Universe tends to balance the scales.

There’s a quote I love that encapsulates this well.

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”

Removing one person creates space for another—usually, you’ll find that that new person brings you up instead of pulling you down. So, really, it’s ONLY by excising the negativity that we can ultimately create the tribe we need to thrive.

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