The most rewarding friendships are not the most glamorous of them. Neither is it a given that the most enriching of friendships are found in the least glamorou of circles. Giving too much to friendships also does not guarantee the best moments in friendships. And holding back yourself from giving all spells doom for the friendship.
The key to having the most rewarding friendships is fixing your eyes on achieving the purpose of the friendship. And this is true in all circles, glamorous or not. Are you there to bring a smile to the person every time you come across each other. Keep smiling. Do you think the next person makes you feel good about your dreams all the time? Keep telling the dreams. Is football the topic that keeps both of you upbeat all day long? Keep talking football. Does your doing the dishes endear you to the folk? Keep doing them dishes. Do your visits make the next person leap. Keep at it.
Hey! Won’ t any of these make people take you for a ride? The answer is, absolutely yes and obviously no. It just depends on which side you choose to stand for the friendship. If you desire to fulfil purpose in the friendship, there will be many such roller coaster rides. But if you choose to stand in for a while, even the smoothest of rides would be bumpy … at their best.
For friendships to be rewarding they have to be enduring. Hardly has anyone seen ‘flash in the pan’ friendships tell touching stories. They do tell of moments, but hardly experiences. And experiences – times of great turmoil, times of glory, times of hurt, times of joy – are hardly moments. Every kind of experiences is interspersed with many moments. And full joy comes with full experiences that go the whole hog. This is what can produce rewarding friendships.
The glamour in friendships can hardly be traded for momentary ‘feel goods’. Good weather, fair weather or bad weather does not bury the glamour. Instead the glamour thrives upon each of them.
Yes, there may be knocks, but they do not KO the glamour. Every moment you remove your eyes from the purpose of the friendship, you push the glamour in them to the wall. And those are moments when we begin to feel that we are giving too much and need to cut back. Or feel that our smiles are not being reciprocated enough, our dreams are beginning to intimidate our friends and our football talk bores them. Really it’s normal to feel these moments in friendships. But allowing those feelings eat deep can suffocate any glamour that we had built in the friendship over time.
Allow your friendships take deep fresh breaths. Discover the purpose for the friendships. Pursue the purpose, achieve the purpose. And live to tell the story of the glamour in the friendships. There is plenty of glamour in that.
?