From Daily Buddhist Wisdom
Don't associate with bad friends.
Don't associate with the low.
Associate with admirable friends.
Associate with the best.
-Dhammapada 78, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Where you place your attention, there you increase.
What you admire, you become.
Where you give your time and energy, you value.
What you value, you increase in your life.
Remember, you are teaching with everything you think and say and do.
When you give your attention to what is not best for you, you increase it.
When you think and worry about what is bad for you, you encourage it.
When you value what is valueless and meaningless, you expand it.
Every place you put your thoughts, your words and your actions, you grow.
The work in this world is to be willing to take total responsibility for everything we think and say and do.
To be responsible is to pay attention, observe and clean up anything that is not healing and healthy.
To obsess on what is wrong, does nothing but encourage it to expand in your consciousness.
To be angry about the bad choices or mistakes you have made in the past, is to encourage re-occurrence.
To hang out with bad company or in an unethical job, or with negative habits will sap your energy.
It is far easier to be conscious and admirable associating with people and ideas you admire.
It is fatiguing trying to maintain your positive energy with people talking negatively.
Gently release what you no longer want.
(To resist, avoid or push away, merely attracts and creates a negative attachment.)
So choose.
Choose wisely.
Choose well.
Choose respectfully.
Choose gratefully.
Choose for what you really want.'
Choose for what you want to have, to do, to be.
Associate with those who have and do and are what you aspire to.
Life can be fun safe and easy, when you are willing to choose responsibly.
Loving you,
Betty Lue