Friends can bring you up or down
"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."
Friends are many things. They provide connection, and shared experiences. They have common interests, and show you new things. They provide examples of how to live, and how not to live. They're a source of ideas, support, and motivation. On balance, they provide a net positive or net negative in your life, just as you do in theirs. You should provide all of these things to your friends, too.
Importantly, you get to choose your friends. As for those I have chosen, I love my friends. I wouldn't be who I am without them.
Friends have helped when I was stuck. My friend Javier told me that "no rapper is talking about the things you talk about." That helped me have the confidence to dedicate myself to music in my early 20s. My friend Ben graduated with his MBA, and that gave me the motivation to go back to college. My friend Danny dedicated himself to his career, and that showed me what's possible with hard work.
Friends are a support system. The older you get, the less experience you share with them. But they'll help you if you need it.
As a freshman in college, my cousin Michael told me a story about a night out he had with his friends. They partied and drank all night, then went to a restaurant to get food. Michael fell asleep in the restaurant, and when he woke up his friends are gone. If someone, or a group of people, did that to you, move on from them immediately. They're not your friends.
Friendships should be reciprocal, and balanced. If you find that you're giving too much to someone who is only interested in taking from you, they're not your friend. Or at least they don't know how to be a good friend. You must give some of yourself to be a good friend — but not too much.
Friends can be a negative influence too. I fear that I've been a negative influence on some of my friends. It's impossible to separate who influenced whom. But I spent plenty of days abusing my body with food and drugs together with friends, and I was somehow able to get out of it. Others never did. My friend Vinnie died of alcoholism at 42 years old. I don't feel responsible — he died 15 years after I moved away from the San Fernando Valley — but it's a reminder of how my life could've been in a different universe.
Friends will come and go. Some will get stuck in place and you'll outgrow, some will outgrow you, and some will fall away for different reasons. Everything has an ending, including friendships. With enough time, all things will end. Try your best to hold onto the good friends, living good lives. And be prepared to move on from friends, dear as they may be, who are bringing themselves down and don't respond to your support. It's your duty to support your friends, but not save them, and not give up who you are in the process.
A dear friend, Mike, died of AIDS just two months before Vinnie. We spent a lot of time together, and I thought the world of him, but there was a darkness inside that he couldn't overcome. The last time I saw Mike it was clear that our friendship had run its course. I just graduated from grad school and was in a new relationship with your mother. He was stuck in place. I wanted more from my life. I still look back fondly on the time we spent together.
Don't underestimate the power of friends. If you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, some of them will be friends of your choosing. So be sure that they're bringing your average up.