"The only way to have a friend is to be one"--Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don't know about you but over the years I have found that it is getting increasingly difficult to maintain friendships.  We are all so darn busy!   There are so many obligations and distractions in our daily lives that sometimes we can forget those who are dearest to us.   I have decided that this is simply unacceptable.  From now on I am going to make my friends a bigger priority in my life.  This isn't rocket science.  I will take the time to make that phone call even when I would prefer to stretch out on my recliner and watch a movie.  Likewise, I will take the initiative to propose that long-awaited night out with my best friend rather than wait for him to make the first move.  Chances are he has been procrastinating as much as I have.  When I was a young man I came across a statistic that most people have only about five true friends in their lifetime.  At the time I thought that this was preposterous but as I approach my 58^th birthday I realize that this is probably true after all.   I like to think that I have always been a good friend.  I try to be there for them in good times and bad.  I hope that I am a good listener.  Likewise, I rely on these friends to be there for me when I am discouraged or upset.   And I want them around to share my joys and triumphs.  This is what true friendship is really all about.   Sometimes I think that we all toss  the word "friend" around much too frivolously with terms like "Add To Friends List" to cite just one example.   It seems to me that we somehow diminish the real thing by such a cavalier use of this word.

I have heard that younger people seem to be making friendship a much higher priority in their lives than the previous generation did.  I hope that this is true.  Friends really are much more valuable than material things could ever be.  I will close with a quotation I found online from a woman named Elisabeth Foley.  Her words seem quite appropriate for the times in which we live.   She observed:  "The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart". It seems to me that this is true but only if both parties are willing to work at it.  Friendship truly is a beautiful thing!