Choices

I've been reflecting today on the choices that people make in life and how they effect them later on. In particular I've been thinking about a friend of mine that I spent most of high school and college with. you could say that he was the reason I left the church but in a good way, he challenged my thinking and made me research topics that we would discuss, and I'm certain that I did the same to him. We discussed everything and often had heated debates on topics like religion, politics, ethics and life. He was my best friend for almost 8 years. Now here is where life choices come in to play. Our second year of college he started smoking pot, I didn't. He made really bad financial decisions, buying a car, motorcycle, big T.V., and furniture all on credit, I didn't. He moved to Arizona and got an apartment with an emotionally disturbed girl he had only been dating for a month, and two pot head roommates. obviously I didn't. After he moved to Arizona he would call me and tell me how bad things always sucked, then he would call me stoned out of his mind and try to tell me how great pot was, then he would call back and say how bad his life was when he sobered up. After a while he stopped calling, I didn't hear from him for about 6 months. He calls me one day and says he's going back to church. He connected his crappy life to not going to church, not to the fact that he had made huge financial and life style mistakes. Its so much easier to blame Satan for the problems in our life than it is to face the fact that we made bad choices. I miss having him as a friend, I feel like the only time I hear from him is when something traumatic happens in his life, and he calls me because I'm the only friend he has that really knows him because he hides parts of himself to fit in with the "young singles" group he hangs out with now. When I try to talk to him other then when he's having issues I feel like he is trying to convert me back to being L.D.S. to justify him doing it (something he's done with other things like leaving the church, drinking, moving to Arizona or smoking pot). I miss my logical, good humored friend. It's funny how choices in life lead us to very different places.