The difference of being different

I have been writing a friend of mine, lets call him little roster served with beef jerky gravy and a side of leaves. During the course of our conversation she (hey fishes change sex so can my friend pronouns) mentioned that one of his past friends had gone down a slippery slope into a life less desired. At the root of our non in depth discussion was why and how often people make such choices. The overall sense was that of fustration.

The first thing I'd like to touch on is greatness. A good friend of mine, lets call him island, gave me some good advice. Greatness doesn't come from doing that one great thing, it comes by preparing to do that one great thing every day with the little things. I derived a corollary from that; the things that effect your life greatly aren't the few big choices, but the small ones you make on a daily basis. As I have aged some, choices like: which school am I going to, what is my major going to be, what am I going to do for grad school, what is my career going to be, and so on have had very little impact on who I view myself to be. Further these big choices have even less impact on who I want to be. Don't get me wrong there are some big choices that will effect who you are greatly, like hey lets have a baby. So what does this have to do with people not living the most desirable life or how does this apply? My contention is this, people sell those little things for what they think are great things.

I don't like to use examples but I'm not feeling paticularly abstract at this time so here you get one. As some of you know, I have what most people would consider some odd religious tenets. I have at one time or another violated nearly every tenet of my faith. That's just a fact I can't hide it. But enough of that lets talk about me being obedient for a change. I've come across a new set of people due to my work. Due to the nature of my work you have to hang out with those you work with; it just wouldn't be good if you didn't. One of my tenets is thou shall not not drink spirited beverages. The vast majority of my new friends drink alcoholic beverages. Some of these new friends are of the exact same faith as me (go figure small world). When we go out there is a lot of drinking. People at the very start asked if I would like a drink, and often became rather pushy on the subject. Being the DD gave me a quick out. However after the first few times I just started letting my position known, I don't drink spirited beverages. I just like saying/writing spirited beverages. Anyways, people still asked all the time. However, as time wore on they realized I wasn't going to bend on this so they stopped. Another interesting trend, as they realized I wasn't going to bend on the issue I got asked to hang out even more where no DD was necessary. What happened instead of my new friends viewing me as a up tight stick in the mud, a foundation of respect had developed for the choice I had made. I understand for someone battling substance abuse this would be a huge choice, but for me not drinking is such a small thing. This respect translated into me being well liked by my friends. Well that and I'm really realy good looking and that's what counts in life.

So lets juxtapose this with one of my new friends of the same faith. I'll call her number one. Number one wanted all of us to like and include her in all the activities we hand planed. He was in a new environment and wanted some people he could bond with. If you hung around people who drink before there are a lot of "drunken stories". So when number one was presented with, "hey just have one drink, join us in the fun!" number one decided to partake of the sacrament of porcelain. Needless to say one drink led to another, on time drinking led to another. Another interesting thing happened, number one started to get alienated from the group. She was viewed as crazy and unstable (even though his behavior was exactly the same as everyone who drank). When I mentioned we should include number one on events people raied a brow every time. They didn't want to do it. Even though number one was a part of so many, I'm talking a lot here, of those drinking stories no bonding happened.

In this example I saw that somebody had traded a little principle of daily living for something they perceived to be great, the bonding and fellowship of friends. The situation worsened and number one's life slowly but surely slipped. Don't get me wrong I'm an idiot and have my fair share of slips. But when I don't slip on the daily little things is when I see my life taking shape. The things in my life for the most part are not defined by the big choices I have made but the small rules I have obeyed or disobeyed. I have so much more to say about this topic but my fingers are tired and many better than I have said much to cover the topic.