For some reason I’ve been thinking a lot about my friendships, both past and present, lately. Now that I’m closer to 60 than 50 in my life I realize that there’s a lot of water under the bridge in terms of my friend relationships and things have not turned out like I expected them to on that front. But that’s an important truism in life. Things rarely turn out like you expect them to which can be good and bad. What I’ve found is that even the strongest friendships will come and go in your life and it’s not always because of tragedy or some dramatic event like a passionate argument or a betrayal. Many friendships tend to just fade out as people mature, make changes in their lives and establish new priorities.

At this point in my life I’m down to a couple of close friends who I don’t see very often as we’re in different parts of the country. Those two friends happen to know of each other but are not friends themselves. One friend, Richard, I consider very close because I’ve known him for about 35 years and from time to time we catch up either via phone calls or texts. The other friend, James, I’ve known for about 30 years and as it happens we work for the same company together albeit in different locations. We talk about work often and often that leads to discussions about how each of us and our families are doing. I see James in person a couple of times per year and I saw Richard in person about a year ago when I stayed for a weekend with his family. Before that I saw Richard about every couple of years. Beyond James and Richard I have a handful of friends, many of whom I knew from prior service in the military, who I keep in touch with over text message from time to time. We often kick around the idea of some kind of reunion but it never happens.

The bottom line is that I’ve found that in life, at least in my life, that friends come and go and that being the case it’s not worth fretting over such things too much as people need to be free to manage their lives as they see fit.

Continue reading “Friends Come And Go” →

If you’ve ever taken a commercial airplane flight you have heard the announcement where the flight attendants inform passengers that if they are traveling with children and the oxygen masks fall from the cabin ceiling then adults should affix their oxygen masks before they try to put them on the children. The reason for that is so that the adults can be sure that they won’t pass out from lack of oxygen, which will allow the adult to better assist the child. Over time I have found that the overall message in these instructions is one that applies to managing relationships in your life. You must be in a secure place in your life in order to be in a position to assist others. Still, so often in our own lives we seek to be the healer/fixer for others while we still have untended issues to address in our own lives.

Through introspection I understand how I have been assumed the role of the healer/fixer in relationships in my life. That awareness has allowed me to recognize how often others act in the role of healer/fixer, particularly in romantic relationships. The healer/fixer role in a romantic relationship adds a second level of intoxication to the already intoxicating feeling of being in a new romantic relationship. The feelings are driven by the knowledge that you’re in the drivers seat, directing activities and exerting control. While these actions aren’t inherently negative they create a false scenario that is ultimately unsustainable. Rather than address our own issues and shortcomings outside of the relationship when we’re the healer/fixer we get caught up in this role and take on an air of superiority, forgetting the things that we need to work on in our own lives. We also tend to become blinded to the reality we quickly turn from romantic partner to more of a life coach (and an unqualified one at that) and task master which is hardly romantic.

Continue reading “Affix Your Oxygen Mask First” →

Relying on other people for your happiness is tricky business. It’s something that everyone does without first realizing that if you rely on the actions of other people to make you happy you will spend much of your life sad. In some cases people will deliberately do things to make you sad and in other cases people will simply do what’s best for themselves contrary to your expectations. Either way you will be very sad.

Regardless of the actions of other people we can be happy. The problem is that we really aren’t taught about that when we’re young. The experiences of our youth shape who we are as adults. Society sees it as more desirable to have many friends rather than few (or no) friends. The big family or group of friends that spend a lot time together has been a popular storyline on TV and in movies for many years. Hence, we grow up believing that happiness is a function of maintaining various relationships. But it’s not true.

Continue reading “Happiness And Other People” →