Picking the Right Friends from the Madding Crowd

As we go along our life, we constantly meet different kinds of people. We talk to them, share lunch together, or join them in regular activities like weekend badminton games or movie watching. They most likely have smiles on their faces when they are with us. But the main question is whether we would embrace them as real friends in the truest definition of the term or treat them as mere acquaintances only. Remember our parents, genuinely concerned about our well-being, would remind us over dinner to wisely choose the people we would associate with? Failure to discern who you mingle with will eventually lead you to trouble or worse a miserable life due to bad company.

Yet, how do we spot who are real friends among the crowd that we come across with in our daily grind. How do we find the people who will be there beside us and honestly look after our welfare? The bad news is there are no books that give answers to all questions regarding friendship. Nevertheless, the good news is experience stands as a good ally coupled with common sense and an ounce of gut feel.

Know Thy Self First

Since what we are after are real true friends, we must understand that they are our extension. How many times have we heard the adage: birds of the same feathers flock together. Friends are our chosen family based on our standard emanating from our self-worth. To find real and true friends one first ought to have a notion of one-self. The individual necessarily has to acknowledge these innate prerequisites given about him:

• He is important and has value – a person must know that no matter what his state in life is, he matters. His views, perspective in life and his whole being is of value.
• He deserves to be happy – there are no signs anywhere that tells one must be miserable. He deserves all the opportunities by which he can be happy and fulfilled.

If one has already known these basic intrinsic rights, then he can proceed smoothly in identifying the persons whom he can call true friends. By then, it is automatic that he has a notion or a glimpse of what his objectives in life are. Establishing this set of intrinsic rights of his being, he should by then established a good self-esteem and confidence. That he is a ‘valuable cargo’ as one popular author puts it.

When one knows his value in life then it will be easier for him to discern who his real and true friends are. Not knowing one’s importance oftentimes is one of the reasons why an individual hangs out with the wrong set of people.

Signs of Who Your True Friends Are

• Life is wonderful when you are with them. Life as it is, is sometimes hard and difficult. But once you are with this set of people your problems seem easy to bear and are given solution. Have you noticed that there are people who make you weak and strong? The former are people called energy vampires. They suck your emotional energy by making you miserable one way or the other. The latter are the positive oriented people who are bearer of light. With these people the difficult problems are easy to solve; the impossible problems take time to be given solution.
• Your perspective are respected and understood. It is of course not always true that you are right about your views and opinions. But with true friends who are after your welfare, what you say has value, respected and understood before given indirect alternative views. When everything you say is always debunked, then these set of people do not treat you as their equals. Better stay away from them lest they imbibe in you that you are worthless.
• They are more goal-oriented. When you want to achieve something in life, hanging out with this kind of people more or less makes you more focused on attaining your goals. These people talk about action and applying it to their plans. It is better if you hang with them since they understand fully well what is in your head than not. More than that, they can even give moral support to whatever you want to attain.

These are NOT your Friends

• After hanging out with them, you are more miserable and problematic as before. Time spend with these set of people can be a wondrous kind of experience. You may have had a fine taste of fun. Life can even be construed as wonderful as you mingle with them. But once you are home, you find yourself in state of deeper misery. Your problems are not even solved but even become worse. Better stay out of these set of people; these people are what the cliché says as fair weathered friends.
• Sowing emotional poison is more of a rule during conversation. When the people you are with talk most of the time about other people and pass on to you harsh criticism and bad gossip about other people inside and outside your circle, you better avoid them like plague. These people suffer in great misery. And what do those experiencing misery are inclined to do? They want company. So they spread emotional poison.

The above list points out several things that you may consider when looking for true friends. You can add more to the list based from your experience. What is important is that you have a set of standard of who you can call as true friends.

Computer Virus and Spywares

Computer Virus and Spywares

The Scourge of Information Technology

The advent of Information Revolution has brought unlimited benefits and advantages to the companies that choose to capitalize on this phenomenon. Company in almost all industries is staging their Information Technology programs to be integrated in their day to day operations. For the last several years, it is estimated that firms in developed countries have an increased of as much as 50% allocated for their Information Technology needs. Nevertheless, the benefits that can be derived from this new technology are being threatened by scourges or various activities done by unscrupulous people.

Two of the main scourges that go along with this technology are the proliferation of viruses and spywares. Viruses are application with the sole purpose of creating havoc in one’s computer or system. It delays the disposal of the company’s product and services. Likewise, the same can be said about spywares. These are programs that hide inside the computer with the intent to disrupt the system operation and steal valuable information.

These application programs run in thousands, scattered all over the Internet. They pose to infect every network user if given the chance. Everyday, new viruses and spywares are launched on the wide world web. They stick to some websites and others can duplicate themselves through email.

Beware of these IT scourges.

Peripatetic Mind

If you are reading this, it is certain that you are familiar with blogsites, and probably have encountered reading a great number of them. You may even be a blogger yourself, maintaining an online journal of your writerly life or just blabbering about the mundane realities of life. There are blogs that exist purely to advertise consumer products, trying to circumvent the usual marketing strategy of selling goods in a specific domain. Yet, there are blogsites that really serve the true purpose of blogging. Try for example the blogsite Peripatetic Mind.

This blogsite tackles the journey of a struggling writer’s life, his dreams, his challenges, his subjective perspective of life in general. Yet, it is with certainty that this blog is all about writing; an attempt to hone the blogger’s writing skills and aptitude in the goal of writing someday a collection of short stories and novels.

So expect that what you would read in this blogsite is about a writer's life -- a journey of a writerly life. One of the purposes of blogging is honing one’s writing skills, and this is Peripatetic Mind’s major purpose. Entries and posts in Peripatetic Mind may dwell about mundane things like how it feels to jog in the morning or the experience of going to the city proper. But definitely the blogsite Peripatetic Mind will talk endlessly about the magic of writing, of books and of good writers.

This kind of blog nowadays is rare to find. Bloggers would usually talk about the drudgery of their pathetic life without specific goals. Here Peripatetic Mind is about reaching a writer’s dream of writing, that true and beautiful meaning of what writing is all about.

If you want to get an intimate experience of knowing a writer’s life, then why not link this blogsite with yours if you have any. If you have none, then just bookmark this blogsite and enjoy the mystical writings and posts in Peripatetic Mind.