143. Friends

So, everyone has heard, "show me your friends and I will show you your future."

I believe that your friends do truly and strongly affect your future.  To me it is interesting as I look back on my short 24 years on this earth and the friends that have influenced me.  I wonder what my future really does have in store.

Throughout my pre-college life my friends and those that influenced me were those in my family, church community, summer league baseball, 4-H (leadership and agricultural informal out-of-the-classroom education for youth) and lifelong friends of the family.  During college my friendship and influence included classmates, internship co-workers, stronger ties with acquaintances I knew before college and my fraternity.

After my formal education period my influences were those I worked with at the Ohio State Fair, Farm House International fraternity staff and fraternity brothers, and now the Peace Corps volunteers, staff and Moldavians.

Before my Peace Corps services my friends were not very diverse.  I had friends of different skin colors, political views, and religiouns but not too many.  I was only friends with a few gays, atheists and other types of people that differ from me in other ways.  Now, due to the Peace Corps I consider some of the people that I consider my good friends are gays, lesbians, atheists, hippies, Mormons, Jews, Moldavians and any other type of social, ethnical, and religious groups you can think of.  While I do not feel like I have changed my major views and feelings about life, religion, and politics, the Peace Corps more than my college experiences (which changed me a lot) is making me re-evaluate my ideals and thought processes.

I am excited to see what the future has in-store for me and how my friends from back home and my new diverse group of Peace Corps friends will affect me.  I believe that all of these experiences will make me a better person.  One example would be my new interest in more fully understanding the former Soviet Union and to see how it really affected its citizens compared to what I have always been told, learned and heard from the older generation and school in the US.  My time here has also helped me re-focus on educating myself about the world and the US, mostly because I get a lot of questions about the US and the world that I have no answer too.