The People You Surround Yourself With

CAUTION !   CONTROVERSIAL TOPIC !

I am blessed to have many friends and even more friendly aquaintances.

In most cases, the people I consider my friends have been designated as such because they value the same things I do and have proven, over time, to be dependable. They are dependable as mirrors and as models of a sort. They are dependable in conversation, they are dependable as companions in the activities of life, they ask great questions, they are listeners, and they have the ability to support me without feeling the need to pander to my every whim. They are their own person. I like that kind of friend. The number of people I consider a true friend is actually small considering all the people I know. After all, how many BFFs can one person really have?


There have been a few times in my life when I have unfriended people...and that was way before Face Book!
I have intentionally chosen not to hang out with certain people because I realized, after a while, they were not the kind of human being I wanted to spend time with. That sounds harsh, yes. But I do think that there are times when we allow a person into the inner circle saved for friends and then come to find out that they were not what we thought they were. Maybe their personality and ours just don't jive or maybe we both have not grown in the same ways and now it is time to part ways. Just like seasons in nature, there are seasons in relationships. When we realize this we can either continue to pretend that they have what we need in a friend or we can find a compassionate way to distance ourselves and remove their influence from our life.


I like Face Book as much as any fan out there. FB helps me to stay in touch with all my friendlies. But...in a way, Face Book has ruined the word and even the concept of "Friend." Friendship is so much more than a FB status update and a running total of pictures of faces and icons. Recently a quote has been making the rounds on Face Book: "You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with." I don't know who that quote is attributed to but if it is true, don't you think we need to pay close attention to the people we surround ourselves with the most? I'm just sayin'.