ITS ALL YOU

Disclaimer: This is not a friendly post!

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Last year, we started noticing my younger brother was becoming uncontrollable. He did his homework late, copied notes at home, hung out with weird new friends and did a lot of naughty things. My mother was very concerned, we all were. I know that the teen period is a very delicate period and lots of behavioral patterns are grown out of and replaced with new ones either good or bad and these bad behaviors looked like they were going to stick throughout his life – I was scared.

One day my mum had had just about it with him and she snapped! “I don’t know where you’re learning all these bad habits but you have to stop moving with those friends who are influencing you negatively.” In his case, I was very sure he was the influenced and not the influencer, but then I blurted, “Mum, what if he’s the one influencing them negatively?”. She looked at me for some seconds and even I had to think deeply about what I’d asked.

It took me back to a memory, something that happened to me in junior secondary school. My dear friend who this is about would have to forgive me, but I have to write the truth and be plain about as far as it can help another human live better.

I had just started boarding school in JSS2. I was virtually a tabularasa when it came to any kind of vices. My mum had done a good job protecting my siblings and I from vices and it took me even up to my fourth year in the university to even know that people did some kind of things they did lol. And so I had made friends with this girl and we later discovered our mothers knew each other. One day, during the holidays, I decided to visit my friend (her house was about a foot throw from mine). Very few minutes after I stayed, her mum started to scold her about something and then she came to the sitting room where I was (she knew whose child I was) and asked me something about school which I replied. I’m not sure if I wasn’t supposed to smile while answering it what it was but she told me that I was influencing her child negatively and that I should tell my other friends in school who were influencing her to stop being friends with her daughter. I was beyond shocked. I went to my house and didn’t tell my mum about it because that was an insult to my mother too, not just to me. This woman did not mind that whatever she was scolding her daughter about might be from her daughter or maybe she didn’t understand her daughter, it had to be someone else. Some time after that, we went on to become best of friends and her mum saw I wasn’t a bad influence.

     Our minds influence the
      key activity of the brain, 
     which then influences 
     everything; perception, 
     cognition, thoughts 
     and feelings, personal
      relationships; they’re all 
     a projection of you.

 Deepak Chopra

I had an encounter with this person who was blaming me for them doing something and when I also told the person about something I did because of them, the person was like “No, that’s all YOU.” How convenient! Sometimes we blame other people for something we did on our own. ‘This person influenced me, that person influenced me’. The only influence you’re under is the one you decide. If you drink that beer and blame someone else, it’s all on YOU, if you steal something and blame someone else, it’s all on YOU. I’ve had a room mate who does all sorts and I did not for one day do those things. Internal influence is a lot stronger than external influence. The earlier you accept that, the better. The only influence you’re under, is the one you decide to be under!
Thanks for reading!