The drama encircling Jon and Kate Gosselin got me thinking about a tidbit of wisdom passed to me by my father. Watching the actions of Jon and who he is associating with tells me about his character without ever talking to him. My father used to tell me if you want to be a champion, run with champions.
You become known for who you associate with. I used to think this advice was not fair. I had some friends who in hindsight I would not let my daughter even talk to, let alone hang out with. Then I thought it was being judgmental. Now, I know the lesson he was teaching.
He was saying not only am I known for who I hang out with, I am known for their actions, because people gravitate to the bad in a person. When my friends are the ones getting in trouble, I automatically am lumped into that category. I learned this when some of these friends got into trouble. The principal would call me into the office to hear what my involvement was. When something went wrong, I was a person in question mainly because of my crew.
This was not a fun feeling since many of the teachers knew my mom. Now I was nowhere near perfect and did get involved in my share of mischief, but we got blamed for everything. We even got questioned by detectives for something we didn’t do. All because of who I hung out with.
As I got older and started diving into self-improvement, I gained a new insight into this chunk of knowledge. I discovered the friends I choose have similar personalities as I do. John Maxwell’s Law of Magnetism suggests you are attracted to like-minded people. As I began striving to be better, I began hanging out with those who were where I wanted to be.
Back to Jon Gosselin. His wanting to do another reality show with Lindsay Lohan’s dad who does not have the best reputation, speaks loudly to me. We now have an insight to his personality with this act.
Do you know who your kids associate with?