October tends to be a spooky month full of many scary things and one thing to beware of is “energy vampires.”

In class a couple days ago my choir director, Professor Richard Rossi said relationships are either two things: life-giving or life-taking.

My sister Sara and I refer to people who are life-taking as “energy vampires,” because all the person does is drain you of energy like a vampire drains their victims of life by taking their blood.

These energy vampires are everywhere.

They conceal themselves in the form of grouchy professors and can even look like the typical college girl with a hoodie and UGG boots.

Determining whom these energy vampires are and removing them from our lives or handling them as best as we can, will always be one of the most important things we can do as students.

Rossi went on a passionate rant about how life is too short, and there are too many bad or tragic things happening in our society to hate and be rude to others.

With this being said, it should not be a hard choice on who to keep in our lives and who to rid ourselves of.

In our lives we are allotted a specific amount of time to live and we will never know how long that time will be.

Andrew Robinson, one of the pastors I grew up around, always said the most disrespectful thing you could do to someone is to waste their time, because we never get back time already spent.

Energy vampires will not only drain the life from you, but they will also waste your time.

The biggest issue I have with people who end up wasting my time is their intentions in the relationship. If someone’s intentions are good, then they usually only have some life-taking moments and we can benefit each other in some way.

As a student, I come in contact with energy vampires and people who waste my time daily. It is up to me to choose to try to respond as gracefully as possible, even when removing these energy vampires from my life.

It can be hard to remove energy vampires from our lives, and hard to maintain the relationship if you just want to distance yourself from them.

If you do not want to completely remove an energy vampire from your life, you could try hanging out with them less or possibly talking to them as a friend about their energy-draining disposition.

Some people get caught up in the bad things in life and do not take account of the good in their lives, which causes them to be an energy vampire.

It is important to realize that nobody asks to become an energy vampire and these vampires are not getting the substance they need in their lives and resort to draining their peers of energy.

Radiating positivity and maintaining a kind and loving disposition can not only impact those around us, but reduce the amount of energy vampires walking around on campus in broad daylight.

Liz Stephens is a junior journalism major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or ejstephens2@eiu.edu.