"Manage Yourself" Is Great Friendship Advice

“AI Will Destroy Humanity.”

The headlines about AI’s potential for destruction should remind us how humanity is susceptible to death and extinction. We can die at the hand of computers. We could become extinct in nuclear fallout. Our world might become too hot to handle. Our species is more frail than we like to admit (unless it makes a sensational headline).

Men, no matter the life-threatening or life-giving situation, we need to manage ourselves.

“Manage Yourself” is a phrase I heard over and over from a Burkinabe/Canadian friend. He reminded his kids to manage themselves when they started to act less than their best. “Manage yourself” was said to his staff, friends, and family in Burkina Faso hundreds of times. He prodded them to act not according to circumstance, but according to principle.

How are you managing yourself?

Are your circumstances affecting your behavior? If so, you’re normal! Life does get hard and it can drag us down. Are circumstances dragging your friend down? Or are circumstances so good that you are floating along and not making long-term changes to your life?

When you see a friend struggling—help him manage. Share the burden. When you see him doing well help him to look at how this good moment can be used in the future.

Manage yourself by being open and honest with your best friends. Let them encourage, carry, lift, push, drag, guide, and love you through the tough seasons of life.

Friends remind each other “Manage Yourself” in life’s good and bad situations.