When man transforms he will often find himself surrounded by people who know him pre-transformation, and they will expect him to be the same. I’ve long debated if one should evade pre-transformation environments, because one has a tendency to regress into immature states of being.

I have come to the conclusion that—while in the process of transformation, friends act as a sort of gravity to the former self. One should avoid old friends in this phase. It is only after many years that the transformed self becomes permanent enough that one is able to inhabit even when the friends make you gravitate towards the former self. But the lesson is being capable of remaining in the more mature version of the self in the presence of old friends.

Friends are a double edged sword in matters of self-development. They hold us accountable for things that we said in the past—if one says “I will never get married”, the time will come when you grow more mature and decide to marry—your friend will come back and say “do you not remember that you said that you wouldn’t marry?”, and one should be aware enough when these transgressions of Word are made, because some of these are important promises to the self (such as not selling oneself out to banal incentives) or it can be the other way around, in which one is sold out to banal incentives and the friend chains your Word to this.