Diluting Negative Influences

"Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but calmness within the storm."

-- Anonymous

No one can withstand our culture’s constant barrage of negative influences without being personally affected.  Your sense of right and wrong starts to blur.  Your standards start to drop. What you previously thought was awful begins to feel normal.

You cannot avoid all the negative influences around you, but you can dilute these influences by seeking to fill your life with positive things.  Immorality affects your soul like junk food affects your body.  A little junk food is inevitable and isn’t going to harm you as long as you are giving your body a steady stream of healthy and nutritious food. 

Likewise, seeking positive influences in your life (such as good people, inspiring books and music, and uplifting experiences) serves to proactively counteract the negativism that surrounds you.  And instead of getting dragged down by the culture, you may even start to steer it ever so slightly in a new, positive direction.