No. Wait. Let me say that again. How much of our lives are determined by the people closest to us?

Not the people we're 'obligated', for lack of a better word, to be with (like our parents), but the people we choose especially to be close to.

Well, digging through our glorious collection of online journals (we've got a spanking collection, trust me) we found an interesting sociological article on the influence best friends and girl friends can have on a male adolescent's career aspirations and achievements, and whether this influence, 'encouragement' as they call it in the article is of the same nature as that of our parents.

This article makes for an interesting and thought-provoking read whose implications are far reaching.

But if you don't have the time for all that sociological jargon and statistics, we'll sum it up to you in a sentence: Sometimes our choices in life come back to nip us in the butt. Who we choose to trust and befriend determines how we choose.

Read the article at JSTOR which showcases a huge variety of scholarly journals on a whole plethora of subjects from folklore and philosophy to science.

Image reference: Photo taken by Yvan Cohen, 24 March 2007, Bangkok, Thailand. OnAsia