The United States of Friendship Part 12 - Putting It All Together

C.S. Lewis said “What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.”

Let’s think about this for a moment. We are drawn to people with whom we share a common vision or a common spirit, or whose vision and spirit we cherish and wish to make our own.

Our friendships spring out of a desire to link to something larger than ourselves. Humans have a yearning to grow.  Not just physically – where we challenge ourselves to accomplish new fitness challenges or achieve new heights in sports, but we also have a yearning to grow intellectually, socially, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically. This is why, along with reading philosophy and self-help books and tapes, we also seek out people to associate with whose ideas can put us on a new growth path or help us along when we are stuck.

Our choices choose our friends. Simon Pegg explains this in his book Nerd Do Well: “We might not know we are seeking people who best enrich our lives, but somehow on a deep subconscious level we absolutely are. Whether the bond is temporary or permanent, whether it succeeds or fails, fate is simply a configuration of choices that combine with others to shape the relationships that surround us. We cannot choose our family, but we can choose our friends, and we sometimes do, even before we meet them.”

The seeds of the friendships described in the United States of Friendship series were planted in my heart before I met any of the wonderful people who befriended me.

A spirit seeking liberation and more joie de vivre found its answer in a friendship with April.

A yearning to find meaning through less self-centeredness culminated in a friendship with Gerri.

A desire for neighborliness found expression in my friendship with Steve.

A search for authentic truth led to an enduring friendship with Krysia.

A need for relief from angsts, big and small, led to kinships with Cindy and Majella and Sharon.

A desire to go from “I can’t” to “I can” led to a bond with intelligent, fearless and resourceful Nadya who has achieved things I never thought any woman could.

An understanding that the first principle of a good life is good health spawned friendships with Julia and my walking buddy Becky.

A realization food is one of the first pleasures of human life (and also one of the purest and most uncomplicated) led to my lunching tradition with Nina.

Along the way, there have been other blessings I am not sure I had anything to do with other than being at the right place at the right time (read right school at the right time).

I refer to my friendships with Brenda and Ruth and Karen and Lakshmi and Ramani and Denise…. school moms without whose help, I could not have survived the grade and high school years.

…friendships that were to magically outlast the friendships between our kids.

Stephen Richards said “Each new friend gives rise to the possibility of anything!”

This is so true.

The possibility of experiencing Persimmon Cake, King Cake, Pot-Roast, Home-Made Bread, Kari Udang Dan Terung, Persarattu, for starters.

The possibility of drinking smoothies with avocado and spinach in them…

The possibility of going to impromptu Zumba classes….

The possibility of going to (my one and only) baseball game….

The possibility of seeing Tanita dressed up for Halloween in an Octopus costume, learning to make pocket tees and attending Chinese lessons….

The possibility of enjoying Indonesian cuisine……

The possibility of learning the difference between APR and APY…..

And so much more.

I could go on and on.

These are just some of the treasures my friendships have served up to me.

I am thankful for all of them.

They have enriched my life and I am better for them.

Connecting is essential to a meaningful life.

Julia Cameron said: “We need to bridge our sense of loneliness and disconnection with a sense of community and continuity even if we must manufacture it from our time on the Web and our use of calling cards to connect long distance. We must “log on” somewhere, and if it is only in cyberspace, that is still far better than nowhere at all.

So here’s to more Facebooking and Tweeting and Pinteresting and Instagramming and blogging.

Here’s to more getting together – whether in cyberspace, on the phone, or face to face.

And here’s to cherishing rather than fretting about our differences.

We all need to adopt the TJ way.

The Tanita Jha way?

The TJ I am referring is Thomas Jefferson - one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, the Third President, and the author of the Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson never let differences come in the way of his friendships.

Here’s what he said: “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” You can read more about the context in which he said that here.

So let’s embrace the challenge of becoming friends with those whose thoughts and opinions are different from our own.

Let’s learn to be friends with those who criticize or ridicule us, or attack our sacred cows.

If you want to know how you can slowly but surely achieve this, you can grab a list of to-do's from my post “How to Become a Low-Maintenance Person”.

Cheers to being a better human being and a better friend. 

So we can all enrich the life of each other.

Dear Reader: This concludes The United States of Friendship series. I hope you enjoyed all the different posts –the one in which I chatted with my taste buds; or the one in which an unusual looking orange-eating genie popped up in my life to grant me a very special wish; the one in which I was interviewed by a famous feminist (no, it’s not Betty Friedan or Gloria Steinem), and the Cinderella one which led to Friend Jeopardy; also all the posts in the first half of the series, with anecdotes ranging from funny to poignant – I hope you enjoyed them all.  Blogging is my way of celebrating my friends. I hope you find a suitable way to celebrate your friends. As always, thanks for reading and hope to see you next week…………..M…..a Pearl Seeker like you.