I'm Not a Great Friend

I have been thinking a lot about friendship.

When I recently got together with one of my best friends, it was the same old familiar refrain, " I can't believe it has been so long, but then when we get together it feels like only yesterday..."

Yeah right.

I am not a great friend.

I talk a lot about understanding our priorities and then assuring that the time we spend is aligned with them. And yet, I fail miserably when it comes to spending time with my very best friends.

My best friends live around the world; in places such as in Australia, Canada, New York, California, England. Obviously I can't see them everyday.

Of course it is hard to see them regularly. But overcoming hard should be chips to get in the game when it comes to the most important things in our lives. So...no excuse there. If it is important, we will make time.

Do I email with them? Do I Whatsapp? Yes, occasionally. But not regularly. And Facebook doesn't count. It just doesn't.

The bottom line is that I am not touching base enough; I am not involved enough with my best friends to the point where I feel my commitment, my investment matches the importance of the relationship.

I think it has to do with setting priorities, aligning our time, our investment with those priorities. But there is another factor at play here too. Often, the people we love the most, the people we value the most (in business too!) get the short end of the stick. We feel we can get away with a certain lack of attention that we can then apply to less forgiving priorities. We think that our friendship is so strong that we can relax on the investment side.

Wrong. Good friends must continually invest in their friendship.

I want to be much better at that.