We all know that we need friends to get through life. Those who are old enough to know the movie Funny Girl will remember Barbra Streisand singing: “People who need people, are the luckiest people in the world…”
But there are times when friends could be bad for us, especially when we are in a growth spurt, trying to improve ourselves. This is when we might be moving on, outgrowing certain friends, while they are trying to hold us back.
How do you know if a person is a friend? “If you will attend his or her funeral”- this is a reply I have heard to this question and I think it is not a bad rule of thumb to use.
However, we have to look closer at the concept of friendship. The best summary I have heard of the different categories of friends we make is the following: We have friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime.
Friends for a reason, are gone when the occasion has passed. You probably met them socially, found some common ground, and went on an outing together – but the friendship didn’t take root and ended.
Friends for a season, could be good friends – and they might even pass the funeral-test. But once your life changes, and you no longer have the need to participate in the same activities, you choose to keep different company. Say for instance you made the decision to change your lifestyle. Instead of regular social dates, you started going to the gym. This could affect your eating and drinking buddies, and they might try to lure you back to old habits.
You might still like your old friends, you simply don’t like hanging out with them any longer. This is no reason to feel guilty – all you have to realize is that your life season has changed. Don’t take this loss personally, it is a perfectly normal fact of life.
But then you get your core group of friends – friends for a lifetime. It often happens that these friends move away or that you do not see them as regularly as you would like to. But when a crisis emerges, or when you have great news to share – they are the ones you would contact first.
Take stock of your friends, and also ask yourself what kind of a friend you are to whom. If you have been neglecting any of your lifetime buddies, pick up the phone. And if life is sending you a new good friend, show up and be the friend he or she has been looking for…
