The Value of "True" Friends

People who claim to be friends but judge a person solely on past missteps and mistakes rarely contribute to the quality of a person's life in the long run. In fact, they can actually drag a person down. On the other hand, people who take the time and go to the effort to truly get to know a person, what they actually stand for, and stand by them and support them as long as they are living today in accordance with a positive set of values, and are honest and open enough to respectfully challenge their friends' thinking and actions... that's more likely a "true" friend and someone who can make a person's life richer in many ways, both today and in the future. And true friends are worth infinite times more than their weight in gold. Cherish the true friends. Life is short, fragile, and very precious. Think carefully about which friendships you invest your time and energy in, as it can be the single greatest determining factor in the quality of your life.
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"It Just Might Be..." -- Starting Your Partner's Day on a Sweet Note

If you wake up in the morning and the first thing you want to do is tell your partner "I love you" or take just a moment to leave her or him a simple little "I love you" note on Facebook, or in a message, or a cell phone text message, or perhaps a written note stuck on the bathroom mirror or somewhere for her or him to discover and smile about -- before you spend time sending everyone else in the world messages about what you're doing, how you're feeling, what's on your mind, etc., then it just might be that you're really in love.

How easy it is to get so caught up in the "busyness" of life. But when we catch ourselves saying things like "I'm sorry, I just didn't have time..." when our partner wonders why we don't have time for the little things, yet looking back we see the hours and hours we so easily spend on things like social networking sites and other things that often don't contribute as much to the quality of our life as our partner is trying to, then perhaps it's time to pause and reflect on our priorities. That's why I'm such an advocate of things like "no cell phone dates," which I shared my thoughts on in a past post on this same blog, and limiting the amount of time idly spent browsing the internet or just goofing around on social networking sites.

Online friends are great. And admittedly some of them are in actuality "real life," everyday friends. I'm all for keeping in touch with them and enjoying that sort of interaction. But I'm also a huge advocate of putting our face-to-face relationships first and not letting the energy and effort that should go into the relationships we want to last a lifetime and to be our safe harbor be sacrificed to things that won't be what (or who) really sees us through the hard times. As Goethe said "Things that matter most should never be at the mercy of things that matter least." The day I tell my partner "I just don't have time" but I spend hours in online exchanges with people who aren't as significant a part of my life as my partner -- please -- someone slap me really, really hard.

Ralph Waldo Emerson stated it eloquently when he said "What you are shouts so loudly in my ear I cannot hear what you say." To put it in our more modern terms, it's easy to talk the talk. But walking the walk takes effort. It takes thinking with both the mind and the heart. It takes asking ourselves "How would such-and-such make ME feel if I were looking at it from my partner's perspective."

What we do (and what we don't do) speaks volumes about which people and what things are really most important to us. It shows. It matters. Thinking about that and truly acting on it can make a big difference in our own lives and the lives of those we truly love. A bigger difference than most people realize. It's the little things that make a big difference. It never fails.

Want to experience it for yourself? Here's a little challenge:

Put yourself a note in a conspicuous place as a reminder to do the following. Tape it on your computer monitor or near your toothbrush. For ten days -- just ten consecutive days -- when you get up, make it one of the very first things you do to take just a minute (okay, maybe it will take all of two or at a stretch three minutes) to write a note, send a text, post a message, or send an e-mail that says "I love you." Try it and see what happens. If you're really brave do it for 30 days and watch what happens. After 30 days, it could become a habit -- the habit of investing the first moment or two of your day in a way that can have positive effects on the next 24 hours for that certain someone in your life (and yourself.) Truth is, habits like this can have a profound influence on the rest of your lives together.

If you actually engage in this little challenge, I invite you to revisit this blog and share how it felt to do it and what sort of reactions you might have gotten from it.

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