Time to Revisit each Friendship Story.
If you need a boost in your day and want to experience instant joy, take a moment to revisit the story of your friendship with any of the people you consider a true friend. You can create a system you can utilize repeatedly that maximizes the joy you experience in the moment along with providing a pathway for extending the joy into the future. Each time you embrace the system you create you’ll find the friendship deepening to a greater level of trust, respect, appreciation, and love. That alone should be all the motivation you need to give it a whirl as soon as you’re done reading this article.
To make the most of each friendship story there are several questions you can ask yourself as you create a system that works best for your goal of instantaneous amplification of joy. The first questions to begin with should include: How did we meet? Who else was present when we met? Was it a shared interest that first connected us and did that mutual interest form the basis of our friendship? How long did it take before trust began to develop? Was friendship instantaneous or did we begin our friendship as acquaintances? What was it that we first shared with each other when trust began to build? What was the first dream or fear that I shared with you and you with me? Have you ever stood up for me, or I for you? When did I discover that you knew how to make me laugh, how to show me compassion, how to listen to me complain or whine, and how to silently sit beside me, knowing that to just be present was the most appropriate way of helping me?
Friendships typically evolve over time and sometimes friendships are strongest over a specific period of time. Maybe you were roommates with someone where you interacted every day and now live in different cities as you both pursued unique career opportunities. Maybe the friendship was initiated when you both worked for the same company but one of you found a different company to work for. The friendship may be forever, but its intensity changed due to significantly less interaction. That’s okay. You can still revisit the friendship story that was created and relive how it made you feel to share the most important parts of your life at that time with someone who mattered to you. Just another reason there’s great value in revisiting each friendship story.
Can you include any family members in your list of close friends? Years ago, I heard someone share that best friends come and go in your life, but your siblings are your friends forever. The reason, they added, was that your siblings were present at every important moment in your life when you were growing up and, in most cases, will continue to be until you die. Birthdays, holidays, graduations, athletic events, weddings, births, significant health events, and more.
Extremely fortunate are the people that can include family members and relatives among their list of treasured friends. I hope you can. Know that it’s never too late to let them know that they mean more to you than just being related. Tell them that you appreciate that the friendship part of your relationship adds great value to your life. Then, start a spirited game of “Remember when….”
The strongest homes are built on a solid foundation. The strongest friendships are also built on a solid foundation. Utilize this thought process when you revisit each of your friendship stories. What made up the foundation of the friendship? When did trust, mutual respect, shared appreciation for the things you had in common and the things that were different get added to the foundation? When did you add shared compassion and mutual support to the foundation?
There’s significant truth to the notion that when you revisit any friendship story, the value that friendship brings to your life increases. It’s also true that when you revisit your friendship stories on a regular basis, you become a better friend. Why? Because, when you acknowledge the value that friendships have brought to your life, you place additional value on what you’re giving back to those friends. You want friendships built upon a solid foundation and you have a better idea of your role in making that happen. Friendships thrive when both people are making a sincere effort to maintain the solid foundation upon which the friendship is built.
Back when I was 21, a friend gave me a 4”x6” desktop piece of marble with the Abraham Lincoln quote “The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.” I’m looking at it as I write this article. It has served as a constant reminder for me to never take friendships for granted, to add value to foundations of the friendships I have, and to remember to make sure my friends know how much I value and appreciate the friendship we maintain.
NOW would be the right time to revisit each friendship story you have. NOW would be the appropriate time to examine, maintain, and improve the foundation that your friendship story is based on. NOW is a wonderful time to reach out to the counterpart of the friendship story you’re revisiting and share what the friendship story has meant, still means, and will always mean to your life. There’s no downside…only upside consisting of trust, respect, appreciation, and love, which are all bedrocks of a solid foundation of friendship. Hey…I Believe In YOU! GiddyUp!