What you want to do, for your child, is that you want the best for the best in them.
That's what you want.
And that's what you want from people that you surround yourself with.
Now they'll hold you to a high standard, if that's the case.
Right? Because whenever you degenerate in any
of the multiple ways that you're likely to degenerate, they're going to whack you
on the back of the head and say, you know, clue the hell in.
You're demeaning yourself.
You're less than you could be.
And there's real judgment.
And it's harsh.
But with friends, it's the same thing. You want friends.
They're not friends, if they're not these people.
You want friends who... When something good
happens to you, that's good for you, right?
They're happy about that.
They're not, like, all bitter and resentful underground.
And, like, saying horrible things behind your back and telling you how they did
something that was better and trying to drag you down.
It's like, that's not helpful.
And then when something bad happens to you
and you go to them and you say, look, this terrible thing happened to me.
First of all, they don't try to top it with some horrible thing that happened
to them because they don't have the patience to listen.
And second, they're not secretly gloating
about the fact that catastrophe finally befall you.
It's like they're actually hurt by it.
And that chapter is an injunction is like,
take a look at the people that are around you.
And if they're not on the side of what's good for you, then walk away.
Because, well, first of all, that's best for them, too.
If you put up with that, all you're doing is enabling it.
It's like, well, it's okay that you mistreat me
in a way that's harmful to me and everyone else.
It's like, actually, no, that is not okay.
It's not the least bit okay.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to help someone when they're down.
That's a whole different issue.
Sometimes someone's on an incorrigible path, there's just nothing you can do.
Maybe they're aiming down.
They're aiming down hard, and they're bitter.
And everything they do is to produce misery.
Virtually everything you have to detach yourself from that.
Like, I always think about it from the perspective of a lifeguard.
So if you're training to be a lifeguard, one of the things that you're trained
to do is to approach someone who's drowning and panicking.
And the way you approach them is you put your foot out between you and them,
and you push forward with your hands with your foot out.
And you basically tell them if they're
flailing them out, say, "look, I'm here to help, but you have to calm down."
And then if they cling to you, like, in panic, you push them away.
You think, well, that's pretty damn cruel.
Because what if they drown?
It's like, yeah, what if you both drowned?
That's, like, not helpful.
You're there to rescue them. They take you down.
You're both dead. It's like fail, right?
So you say, "Look, quit panicking.
I'll help you out, but I'm not drowning along with you."
It's like, well, it's the same with someone in your family.
It's like, if they're on a downward path and you've
done your best, you've made your efforts, and they're not paying attention.
They're not changing.
They say, yeah, well, I'll quit doing this.
Yeah, I'll quit doing this.
They tell you the same story over and over and over.
It's a downhill path.
You don't trust it at some point.
First of all, you stop offering your words
that do not cast pearls before swine - a very, very harsh statement.
Right?
But what it means is: if someone... If you're offering words of wisdom
to someone in the genuine attempt, help, and they treat that with contempt,
then shut up because you're demeaning your words by throwing them away.
You think, well, how do you help someone who's aiming down?
Sometimes you help them by walking away
and saying, look, you're aiming down so hard that despite the fact you're
my brother, man, it's like, you know, this is killing me.
You're aiming down so hard.
I'm not coming along with you.
And the reason I'm not is to tell you
in no uncertain terms, that what you're doing is so terrible
that I will even violate our kinship to oppose it.
And maybe it'll take them ten years to wake up to that.
And that can be the case because,
you know, people often have to be hit so many times before they learn.
You see that, especially if someone's
addicted or otherwise pursuing a pathway that's, like, seriously downhill.
Why should I think that you're actually trying to change?
Maybe you're just telling me is...
You tell me the story that you use to justify your own idiocy to yourself,
and then you tell it to me, and you demand that because I'm
compassionate, I accept it and therefore validate your excuse.
It's like, well, it's really hard not to get tangled up in that, right?
Because if someone who's really in rough shape is telling you about why they're
suffering, first of all, they're probably about half right in their story.
But some of its justification and excuse
and blaming and all of that failure to take responsibility,
it's really hard to stand up and say, no, I don't buy that.
No, I don't buy that. No, you're wrong about that.
You have to be a brutal bastard in order to do that.
Hey, sometimes, like, surgery is brutal, right?
It's brutal. But this chapter about, you know,
only making friends with people who want the best for you.
That's a brutal chapter.
It's right.
Unfortunately...
My sense is that you should
surround yourself with people who genuinely want the best for you,
or perhaps, more specifically, genuinely want the best for the best part of you.
And if the people around you are not supporting you in your endeavors,
and they put you down, and they punish you for your virtues or
even punish you too intensely for your faults and fail to reward you when you're
doing what you should be doing and fail to engage in reciprocal interactions.
That there comes a point where you would be better off finding someone who is
actually on your side, and that can even be the case with family
members, although, of course, that's a very difficult decision to make.
But sometimes people do have
the misfortune of being tangled up with family members who are so who are
operating in a manner that's so counterproductive to their health
that it's better for them, despite the pain to cease communication with them.
And sometimes paradoxically enough,
that can also facilitate communication, because sometimes you have to draw a line
in the sand before people are willing to undergo the serious self consideration
that would proceed any real transformation.
So.. But I would say,
even if you don't like the idea of removing the toxic people in your life,
you should certainly endeavor to surround yourself with the sorts of people that you
would want to surround, someone that you regarded as your friend or loved one.
So you need to extend the same
courtesy to yourself, especially to the part of yourself that's
driving upward that you would to someone that you cared for.