Find Your Tribe

“Life is short, Vic. Go where you feel love. And if that love’s consistent, stay.”

Maura, Doom Patrol (TV Series)

The people you surround yourself can be the secret to your success, or they can be the reason you end up going nowhere. You’ve likely heard the saying, “You are the average of the five people you most closely associate with.” It used to be that geography determined that circle for us. The people we grew up with, our neighbors, classmates, teammates, the person in the office or cubicle next to us. Our circle, our micro-community, was largely dictated and formed for us. Not by us. Now we are all fortunate enough to live in a world where that doesn’t have to be the standard. Social media and the internet and FaceTime and all these other methods to meet people and stay in touch have evolved to the point where our circle of people can be spread out across the country, continent, or even span the oceans. It’s allowed us to go from the circle we were lucky enough, or unfortunate enough, to be born into, to a community that we have chosen and cultivated. There’s no excuse to stay surrounded by people that don’t want the best for us, that don’t push us to be our best, that pull us back down into the boiling water to slowly drown. Choose wisely.

Choose a community of people, especially an inner circle, that truly loves you. Loves you for who you are, not who they think you should be. Loves you for who you are, not whatever mask you’re used to wearing to hide what you think are faults or shortcomings. Loves you, not in spite of, but because of your quirks and oddities and aspects of you that don’t quite fit in with “normal” society. Loves you for the weirdo that you are. (For more on the full power of embracing your weird, check out this article from the vault.) It’s not about the things you do for them, it’s not about the amount of money you have or how you look or the car you drive. They love you for who you are and the joy you bring them by being around. It’s love that creates the foundation, and when you find it, and it’s consistent and not conditional, stick around.

It’s not enough to focus only on love though. Hippie communes taught us that. There’s got to be more, there’s got to be some level of drive and forward progress. There has to be support for your dreams, your goals, the things you want to do. And not just support, but true support, real accountability. The type of support that when you stumble along the way to accomplishing what you want, your friends come back and pick you up and help game plan how to avoid stumbling. They stick next to you to make sure you’re moving forward again, and then go back to pursuing their goals. Because that’s another part of this, not everyone in your group of friends and mentors need to have the same things they’re working towards. That’s not the point. The point is that they support you and you support them. Don’t expect them to care about your goals more than you do though, they’ve got their own they’re working towards.

In my friend circle, we’ve coined a term, “aggressive support.” The not-so-inside joke is that we don’t bully our friends, we aggressively support them. There’s a little edge of competition to it. More than encouraging and supporting, it’s pushing each other to be better, to work harder, to improve. It’s the intersection of love and support. Because we love each other, and because we support one another, we want the best for each other and for each other to be their best. That means pointing out when someone doing something counter to their goals. It means calling each other out. It means pointing out that the chosen course is foolish and is going to end up being a mistake. It also means that when one of us still pursues something foolhardy and falls flat, we can laugh about it. We can call each other out with no fear of reprisal or hurt feelings. Without the aggressive support, it is no more than a cheer section.

If you’re not sure where to start, try this: look around at all the circles you find yourself a part of. The gym you go to, your work place, church, family, that group of friends from high school or college, that group of people you see every Saturday morning at the park or golf course. And then ask yourself, do I feel like I have to contribute something to this group to be accepted? Am I only here because I want something from them? Do they love, support, and want the best out of/for me? 

I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a community around you. Not just any community though, one that loves you, supports you, and aggressively supports you. If that’s the one you have because it’s the one that was given to you based on where you were born or where you went to school, great. If not, get out there and find one. Search them out. Go to where people you want to be around hang out. Make connections and foster them. There’s no excuse in today’s world that is more connected than ever to not be able to surround yourself with people who want the best for you and the best out of you. Go find your tribe.