TL;DR Without disciplined change, picking up and making the move that'll change your life will only create the same problems in a new location

Body: Twice, perhaps even three times now I've packed up and moved away from my distractions. Law of Attraction dictates without change the same types of people I palled around with before the move will trickle back into my social life. For me this has always been deviants, roughnecks and burnouts. While there is prosperity and success growing up around a rough crowd, these types of people and the lifestyle they live hinder the forward progression of success I seek. It is because of this interference I must say goodbye old friend.

I picked up and moved away from family, friends and Iand that I love in exchange for unfamiliar faces in unfamiliar places. One problem my friends helped encourage was an overindulgence in marijuana, sitting around and accomplishing nothing. There's an abundance of weed in my new found home. As soon as I found the plug for top shelf weed, a bottom shelf prices, I didn't need my friends to snap. I spent days in a blunt induced daze. It was back to my high school habits of falling asleep with a blunt and waking up to finish it before leaving bed. I spent my time with false productivity, spending my daze reading, hiking and urban exploring.

False productivity is productive activities used as distractions from your main mission. Think of this as side quests, things that should be accomplished when not racing a clock. They're sugar-coated to pad the procrastinators ego. First noticed when my temporary roommate was cleaning his room with an unstarted report due in six hours. His defense accompanied with a chuckle and a smile, "was the tidiness would help him focus better, if he ever got around to the report." The report was late. Now who can deny the benefits of hitting a trail or three, checking out your new location. I was lifting, cooking good meals while doing my dailies, just rolling up blunt after blunt. I was lucky to have caught myself by day four. Even though it appeared to my roommate "I was having a full day." retrospect was I accomplished nothing that needed to get done, only the things I wanted to do.

Picking up the pen, picking up my thesaurus, I used the old excuse it's a writer's favorite spot to think and trotted off to the closest watering hole. My work got done in two hours with a record-setting pace of one and a half drinks. My roommate wanted to join me halfway through. I was polishing off my third drink by the time he finally took the seat next to me. Then a fourth and probably a fifth drink came within the next hour as he caught up. Making our way home we stopped at a halfway point. Drinks six and seven were consumed while we were directed to another spot. There less than five minutes I grabbed a quick double of Jameson for our half a mile walk home. Two drinks turned into seven or eight just for the sake of entertaining a friend.

Crabs in a bucket, chaotic in a frenzy, prevent ones escape. Unintentionally or intentionally it dose not matter for the results are all the same. My roommate definitely influenced my behaviors in a negative manner as I readjusted within my first month. He had me out seven times and who knows how many 4 a.m. beers he snuck in before my day even began. I consumed more alcohol in my first month living with him then in the previous four Holiday months. He had been drinking daily when I first touched down. Last night he bought his first case for the house in over two weeks. He blamed my auditable, genuine, "I'm good." for his changed behavior. If you place two individuals in the same room, the strongest frame wins out. Two years ago we'd have been making a ball out of the night life here. Fortunately I'd spent the last year distancing myself from those behaviors back home. Once I regained my sense of self it was strong enough to rub off on my roommate. He's also taken interest in cooking for himself. He was horrifically shocked then embarrassed the first time he saw the difference in our shopping carts. We're in it together for an agreed, extended period of time. During that time I'm going to have to actively guard against slipping into his bad habits, especially ones I've previously overcome. The fact we click coupled with an unrelenting will means he'll continue picking up my good ones through a trickle-down effects of good behavior. I know pulling a crab from the bucket doesn't help him should he ever find himself back there but the kid knows if he intend to be friends he's going to have to keep up.

Then there was this morning's temptation to stowaway three beers to check out the trails closest to home. On the trails I met a boy still, in his early twenties. Slouched posture, outwardly relaxed with half a Four Loco in his hand, he struck up conversation with me all before 10am. A nice enough kid, he's lucky I made the conscious decision not to instinctively put a couple social beers in the pack, "just in case." I'd have befriended the poor boy, christening our encounter, having us shotgun the first round of Rolling Rocks. We carried on walking, strangers still, in casual conversation. Before long this naturally skinny, blue haired girl appeared. He stopped short of her talking as I walked by.

In the end I knew I had to keep walking. She was cute enough despite the signs of her lifestyles damaging her good genetics. My social life really could use the expansion. Drinking, smoking, debauchery, sooner or later the feelings of disappointment is how it'd end. I did not cave to my initial temptations based on old habits, to bring the social beers. My second temptation to prolong my deprived body interaction with a pretty enough female didn't bring me to inviting these deviants into my life. I knew befriending these two would only be continued distractions to the line of success I am on. These two would only bring me down, they couldn't even bare to bring themselves up. I didn't even look back as I heard his voice call out, desperate for affection, "it was nice chatting with you." A year of preparation went into this moment. Chucking up the deuces, I never looked back. All for the best but it's stung like a bitch. I was turning my back on old friends.