Traveling with a friend can be a blast, or it can be an immense disappointment.

It all depends on how well you get along and communicate, and how much you each gain by having the other around.

Are you just there because you have to be, or have you chosen to be around this person? Are you benefiting from their company, or are they getting in the way of you seeing and doing what you want to see and do?

This doesn’t just apply to travel-buddies, it applies to the people you surround yourself with every day.

Life is too short to spend it with people who don’t inspire you or otherwise make you happy.

Act accordingly.

Update: February 2, 2017

This, I think, is a toe-dipped-in-the-water expression of what can seem like one of the more cold and callous aspects of minimalism: applying the tenets to relationships.

Minimalism is about focusing on the important stuff so that you have more time, energy, and resources to spend on those most vital things. The same applies to relationships, which means spending less of what you’ve got, especially time and energy, on those people most important to you. The consequence of this is that you’re spending less on others, and that sounds kind of mean, especially to folks who’ve never acknowledged that some of their relationships are draining rather than valuable.

To each their own on this, but I’ve found that focusing in this regard has dramatically improved my relationships as a whole.