The people you hang out with as a child may seem innocent then, but as you get older they may change for the worse, dragging you down with them. As a child they may just be the class clowns but as you grow up they may turn to drug dealers and negative influences. This can have a negative impact on years to come or even  your whole life. If you surround yourself by good influences and a positive environment I think almost everybody on this earth can succeed.

In elementary school I started to hang out with the wrong group of kids however, they seemed normal then, and  I didn't know they were going to be the kids that they are today. Elementary and middle school was very cliquey  and I wanted to be part of the “popular” group desperately. They were naturally good at sports, got all the girls, and were some of the funniest kids I knew. They were always down to chill and do whatever, they had this attitude about them that they just didn’t care, teachers were always yelling at them for the things they did in class but it was funny. As we grew older, it started to become a problem. My best friend started to introduce pot to the whole grade. A few years prior, I had seen the effects of drug use on my family through my brother, and I had told myself I would never do it, but by the end of seventh grade I had. In fact breaking rules and smoking pot became just about the only thing we ever did when we were with each other. As Elbert Hubbard said “A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” Not someone you don’t share things with out of fear of being called “pussy” and looked down on as weak . You tell your true friends stories, share with them your problems and ask them for advice, not just sit on the couch in silence playing video games and waiting for the bong to be passed your way.

As high school came around, things only got worse. I started to put myself in risky situations with the ones I had grown up with. They urged me to come along as they took part in vandalism, drug dealing, drug using and many other activities breaking the law. This caused me to have countless encounters with the local police and I even got arrested. My drug use and risky behaviors caused me to be unsuccessful in school, work, and more importantly, it destroyed my family relationships. It brings tears to my eyes sometimes to think how many times I've frightened my family, disappointed them, and made my own mother cry and it makes me angry at the kids who pushed me take part in bad behavior.

All these things are due to my actions, and I take full responsibility for them, However, I believe that if I hadn't cared about popularity back in middle school and started to hang out with the “punk” kids who got all the girls, but soon turned to dropouts and drug dealers, I would be a whole lot more successful today. It’s amazing to me that one decision to sit at a certain table in elementary school can lead to a chain of events that changes your life forever. It just goes to show, the people you surround yourself with, consciously or subconsciously, can have enormous impacts on your life for better or for worse, that’s just how the world works.