December 16 – FriendshipI'm really not the "sudden burst" of insight type. Occasionally a quote or a message will really open my eyes, but I'll still spend hours pondering why afterward. There have been a few positive changes in my life in 2010 that I would say are the result of specific friends. I'm really trying to find a balance between therapeutic writing for myself and keeping it brief for a reader, as few of those as may be.
How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?
(Author: Martha Mihalick)
I already touched briefly on my struggles not to rely to heavily on one friend, I think I started to become more aware of this in spring of 2009 but it's a gradual process that I relapse into all the time. As stated in that post, we're hard wired to find someone to share our lives with, but in my case the wiring is fine but the software has a pointer set to the wrong address. What a complex metaphor. I'm fixated on the wrong person. Gradual changes for that one.
In 2010 my friend Laura got me going to the gym again. 2007 was a great year for me fitness-wise. It was mostly motivated by sex, but I had the time and the opportunity to exercise and enjoyed it. When I stopped having the time and the enthusiasm for it, it wore off. This year I enjoyed going again thanks to the support and insistance of my gym buddy Laura. She had to stop shortly after I started, but I've stayed strong mostly since. I've had some hiccups, when my iPod wasn't working, around Thanksgiving when I was traveling, and lately when I was sick, but I'm still committed. Similar to my writing, the difference is my commitment. It's ok to take breaks because I know it's still important to me to continue.
My friend Kyle taught me a good lesson this year. We had always been casual friends until we became roommates. His life is about five times busier than mine, and he likes it that way. I may just be a more lazy person, but I admire his motivation and ability to physically stay active when others would become exhausted. I learned from Kyle this year how to build a friendship of convenience and how to let that friendship fade back into a casual one after that ends. When I was young my family moved every three years, and I just got use to it. I was friends until I moved and then I started trying to find new friends at my new home. (Insightfully I just realized that's also why I'm pretty likely to fixate on one person and build a single strong connection I can rely on than to try and cultivate many.) Anyway, Kyle didn't intend any malice but when he moved away for med school this year he has just been so busy that staying in touch hasn't been a priority and he didn't have any reason to try to cram that into his schedule. For me, that was disheartening, but it's also been revealing for my own behavior and learning to adapt.
My friend Jon continues to serve as an optimistic point of view, and did so today in fact, but changes in his life this year have been a very strong indicator that the path that society pressures us all to take isn't the best or only option. Jon's 2010 has been very successful and I think it's because he takes the time to keep a level head, is patient for the good things in life to come to him, and willing to put in the hard work for the distant reward. Each time he reminds me of these things I hope that they'll sink in.
The young parent friends I get to see regularly have had some beautiful lessons this year. Carla and Chris have done such a great job with their son, despite having to "make it work" more often than not. When I start pitying myself thinking about how much they accomplish with the help of each other and their friends usually helps me turn my pity into motivation. Joey and Erin have such a great family too, and I never expected Joey to be in such a great place (abstractly) at this point. He faced much of the same setbacks I did, even our apartment fire, and he's recovered gracefully. Watching his little girls grow is so amazing and triggers paternal instincts in me that I never knew existed. I'm so grateful to share in their experiences and very grateful that Joey and Erin found each other.
The prompt also asks who has helped change my perspective on the world this year, and I will say that the French and British users on Twitter that I've come to follow and had conversations with have helped me feel a lot better about my US sense of entitlement. Where I might be living at home again, the twenty-seven year old boy in the UK expects his mother to do his laundry and bring him home a happy meal too. That's a specific example, and I'm sure there are much more practical people as well, but I haven't made social connections on the other continents this year, the main change in my world perspective is that European young adults are just as lazy and confused as we are, which is a small comfort if you ignore how much larger it makes the issue of our entitled unemployment lifestyles.
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