Choosing Friends

I grew up believing the sayings “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are”. My parents instilled this belief in me from a young age. As a child, my parents did not judge me by my friends, but rather by my choices. They never really sat down and talked to me about my friends they would just say the same thing over and over again. I use to think they were just crazy and they did not really understand me and my friends. It was not until I was about ten years old that I realized that what they were telling me was actually true. In like the fifth grade I got into some trouble. I was with my friend and he hit this lady with a rock and ran. I go caught and blamed for everything. I thought my friend would speak up and tell the dean of discipline and the old lady that I was not the person that threw the rock. Instead he sat back and watched me get in trouble. When I confronted him about the issue he said he could not do anything that what was done is done. I was thought of as a trouble maker from then on when really I was really just a kid trying to hang out. While talking about the situation my parents just said “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are”. I started to think as hard as I can about what they been telling me for ten years. I realized that I was considered a trouble maker because I was friends with a trouble maker. I soon stopped hanging out with the same friends and I noticed that the teachers and other kids were not thinking of me as a trouble maker, but a good kid with bad decisions. Since that incident I have chosen great friends and have not been in much trouble. My parents made a great decision in teaching me to choose my friends wisely at a young age. I believe that friends can determine how a person is categorized.