To get through high school and university, I needed the positive influence of others. I was never an exceptional student. For years I was too interested in sports and having fun to bother paying much attention in school. I did what I had to do. However as I got into high school, I realized very quickly that sports was not my future. So I made a choice. I chose to surround myself with people who got better grades than me. In my mind it was simple. I needed to get better grades, so I needed to live like those who were already doing it. It worked. I developed some of the same habits. Some of those people were even willing to help me out at times.
I have since built on this concept of surrounding myself with people who are a positive influence to the point where it reaches into many areas of my life. I try to hang out with people who are smarter or more successful than me. I try to surround myself with people who inspire me. I want people around me who inspire me to become a better person. I also make every effort to limit the influence of those who do nothing more than discourage and antagonize me.
Years ago, I read a sermon–yes, some of us actually ‘read’ sermons–where the preacher was talking about how in this world there are really two kinds of people–‘gainers’ and ‘drainers’. I have heard some people refer to these two types as ‘basement people’ and ‘balcony people’. The gainers are people that feed into us. If you spend time with a gainer you walk away feeling better than you did before. The gainers in life encourage you. I have never been to a horse race, but if you picture the horses running their race, and then picture people in the ‘balcony’ cheering on their horse, you will get the idea. Those people cheering on their horse are gainers. I can just imagine them yelling “Keep going!”, “You’re almost there!”, “You can do it!”. Gainers are people that instill us with confidence.
On the flip side, some people are drainers. These are the people who drag us down. After spending time with them you feel exhausted. Drainers love to point out our faults. They also love to tell us that the world has come to an end, and yet at the same time tell us that it is only going to get worse. These drainers will just suck the life right out of you. In fact, some would even go so far as to identify drainers as being ‘toxic’.
We are currently living through a pandemic that has caused a great deal of stress for a lot of people. As a result, we need more and more people who are willing to be ‘gainers’. With all the negativity that is out there, most of us need more positive influence in our lives. We need to have friends who are similar to the guy Barnabas from the Book of Acts in the Bible. He is one of my favorite people in the Bible. His real name is actually Joseph, but his friends called him ‘Barnabas’ because he was such an encouraging guy. This nickname given to him actually means “Son of Encouragement”. Put another way, Barnabas was a balcony sort of guy. He was a ‘gainer’. Oh, that we could live our lives in such a way as people would want to give us a name like that.
When I think of gainers, there are two people in my life who really stand out. When I am with these guys I always seem to walk away feeling better about myself and about life in general. Their enthusiasm for life is just contagious. Social workers and psychologists will talk about something called “emotional contagion”. This is the idea that our emotional state, our perspectives and attitudes can rub off on other people. Simply put, our emotions can be contagious. This being the case, it becomes very important what type of people we are, and what type of people we hang out with.
In a world where we are so focused on avoiding spread of disease, I think it would be great if while trying to avoid spreading disease, we could also try to spread a positive, encouraging fun-loving vibe. It would be great to know that when people walk away from spending time with us, however brief the encounter, that they have caught something positive that makes their life that much better. Who knows, they might even see Jesus working in and through our lives as a result.