The Idea Of Friendships

As I have been laying here in bed all day sick (my least favorite thing because I feel so unproductive), the idea of friendships is something that popped into my head. It has also been all over Facebook today so it has very much been in my face. I have had many different kinds of friends throughout my life, but most of them fall into two categories, temporary and permanent.  It is much harder to land into the permanent category but once they are in it, they stay in it. If there is one thing that I have learned from those temporary friendships though, don't have high expectations for them.

I have always had a habit of having high expectations for my friends and how they should be.  I also tend to dive all into relationships and then when I realize that they are temporary, it is a shock to me.  That is why I learned the lesson to not dive into friendships too fast, the same as relationships.  The friends who I have in my permanent group, are everything to me and are the people that I will drop everything for.  The lengths of the relationships range from being friends since we were 6, to being friends since we were 18.  But nevertheless, these are my people and nothing can get in the way of those friendships.

Another idea that I have learned is to not put in more effort into the friendships than that person is willing to put in.  I have been guilty of this too, and the most recent time is the friendships that got me thinking the most and made me look into this topic more.   I was putting more effort into the friendship than the other person and it rally got to me.  At first I thought that it was all my fault for putting too much pressure on that person, then I was upset with them because I thought they were just being selfish.  Recently I started thinking about it more in a class that I am taking, stress and human health.  I realized that it is causing me far too much stress than it should be.  You can't be friends with everyone and that is something that I realized and have accepted.  Also, you aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. I know that not everyone likes me and I am totally ok with that.

The most important friendship that is in everyone's lives is the friendship that they have with their self.  Being able to look at yourself and think "yeah I would like to be friends with that person", is a thought that is one the think about and have an answer to.  I know there have been times that I would not have been friends with myself, but I can say at this point in my life, I would really like to be friends with myself.  Once you are able to be best friends with yourself, it will be easier to look into the other friendships in your life and see which category they fall into.

If you are reading this and it is sparking thoughts about your friendships, that's good! I want to spark new ideas and thoughts for you all!