Tipping The Balance

Ha! This is funny – my (slightly eccentric) sister gave me a lifestyle tip yesterday during one of her sumptuous luncheon parties held in her elegant country home. She is receiving some lifestyle coaching second-hand, through a friend who is attending a class and who is passing on the gems week-by-week. The tip I received is to draw up a chart of all of my friends and to categorize them thus:

1. Drains – those friends who only steal your time, resources and energy; the self-obsessed;
2. Radiators – those friends who spread their energy and warmth and so are uplifting to one's life;
3. Enemies – those who pretend to be friends but who would actually destroy you if they could;
4. Inspirationalists – those friends whom you might aspire to be like (people of inspiration).

So, I have drawn up an Excel spreadsheet and down the left-hand side column I have typed in the names of everyone I know. Well, not quite everyone because that would take me a month of Sundays to complete, but the names of the people I see regularly, at least. The next four columns are headed up with the above four categories and against each name I have put an 'x' in the relevant column. It's quite interesting to see how the balance has worked out. Unfortunately, my sister hasn't yet learned (second-hand, of course) what conclusions can be drawn from the final statistics, nor what action one should take from the completed table, but mine doesn't (so far) show such happy results. There seem to be more 'drains' than there are 'radiators'.

And why is this? Well, maybe that's the point of drawing up the chart – it tells us more about ourselves than it does about our friends. From the figures, it would be safe to assume that I have allowed myself to become surrounded by too many of the kind of people who take me for granted, who abuse my friendship and my hospitality (and generosity too), and who are not prepared to give me very much in return. Whether they do this consciously or not is irrelevant; it's more relevant that I allow this to happen.

So what should I do? Cut those in the wrong columns out of my life completely? Or should I just be more aware of their motives and deal with it? Whose responsibility is this anyway? The estranged Mrs Pilgrim recently called me a 'loon-magnet' and perhaps she was right. Is there something of the victim about me? Well, if so, now is the time to put that right. I'm not going to focus on those two columns that seep negativity into my battered life – instead, I shall focus on the other two groups. And to those people who fall into those categories, I say: Thank you, thank you, thank you.