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As we get older our responsibilities multiply, other sectors of our life consume all the free time we used to have on our hands. We tend to focus more on raising our family, concentrate on career building and making time for the partner in our life. Automatically you will realize that friendships may become hard to manage and making new ones almost seem impossible. The girlfriends brunch dates, Friday night outs and Saturday shopping will slowly fade out.
Having true friendships is one of the most amazing things anyone could ever ask for. Although your partner is supposed to be your best friend, you will sometimes need someone to share certain pertinent issues with.
Migrating abroad can have a big toll on your childhood friendships. Not many people are willing to maintain friendships with childhood pals, for several reasons. Two common causes of old friendships disintegrating is distance and change in social status, but if these reasons cause you to dissociate yourself from good old friends then your character is questionable.
They say good friend are like stars, you don’t always see them, but you know they are always there. I met one of my best friends in 8th grade during high school in Jamaica, we have remained friends up to date. It's been 22 years of friendship and counting. We don’t see each other often but we communicate and stay active in each other’s life. I like to say we are together in spirit. We both currently live in America but in different states, Danielle and I are busy raising our children, pursuing our dreams, also we have met new friends along the way, yet we maintain our bond of friendship. When we meet up in person, it's just like old times, the love, laughter and genuine sense of trust is very evident.
Beware of resentful friends, they pretend to celebrate your happy moments with you but, they aren’t happy for you. I personally have an experience of been surrounded by fake friends, I remember back in 2015 I invited 3 close friends of mine to my birthday dinner. Only one honored my invitation, meanwhile I had given them prior notice weeks ahead of time. The other two cancelled on me while I was still waiting on them at the restaurant with no reasonable excuse. Thank God Annimetu showed up and we played it off like the disappointment never happened.
Real is rare to find these days, and genuine organic friendships are hard to come by these days where supposed friends subtly compete with you.
Friendships shouldn’t be a competition, but rather about celebrating each other’s success. I have personally observed that envying someone’s success doesn’t cause them to be less successful. Rather it’s a waste of energy which could be channeled into building your own dreams. I am also of the view that people who envy others success are mostly people who have no set goals in their lives, or people whose goals in life are set below the bar. I suggest you set your goals in life and make them reasonably high, in so doing others achieving their goals only become a motivation and not a threat to you. The voice of jealousy may whisper into your ears when others are advancing faster than you in life, it is your responsibility to maintain mental toughness and say to yourself “ I’d genuinely congratulate this person on their win, id work harder, pray harder and tap into their success with an open and clean heart.”
Also, find time to check on your old friends, life may be harsh on some of them, others may be contemplating suicide because of the setbacks life has brought their way. One day, your children will grow up and move out and you will once again have more time on your hands. You will need some genuine old friends to go shopping and brunch dates with, you will wish you had someone you’ve known for decades to have old conversations with.
I end on the note of saying great friendships isn’t necessarily about how long you’ve known each other, but rather how much your friend is willing to sacrifice for you. Finally I say choose quality of quantity. Until next time XOXO.
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