DO YOU REMEMBER?

Remember the back roads, swimming holes, late nights, and things our parents told us not to do, but we did anyway? All the laughs and struggles we helped each other through? We were inseparable growing up. It’s hard to think about how things used to be today though. Adult friendships are much different.

We grew up, we got married, we had kids, jobs, and for some of us, businesses. Life happened. It’s hard to maintain the kind of friendship we had as kids and teenagers in the adult world. Things were much simpler back then right? Nonetheless, life and it’s happenings drove us apart.

Adult friendship these days has been reduced to us saying “We need to hangout” once a month until we die. Typically on a facebook post or message. We might even make plans to make this happen, but along comes life and it’s happenings again messing it up…

The problem though, isn’t so much with what happens in life as it is with our priorities. Somewhere along the growing up timeline we forget how important our friendships were to us. We forget how much joy they made us feel. We entered the real world after high school and it was such an exciting time that we pushed away our friendships to fully embrace it.

Some of us went to college, some to the military, some to start a business, and some of us traveled to live far, far away. After that exciting phase burnt off and we got settled in we started remembering the good times we had growing up. We keep saying we’re going to hangout again soon but we never make the time.

Time is the go to excuse these days. Nobody has enough time for anything they don’t want to do. Some of us make time for fitness and friends. Some of us make time for TV and take-out. Sometimes we even manage to get within a 5 minute distance of each other and we still can’t even manage to come see one another.

Is this the standard in adult friendships? Is this as good as we can be?

Living nice means we prioritize the things that make life great and enjoyable. Adult friendships don’t have to be a constant false promise to see one another. If you truly want to have meaningful relationships in life you have to make consistent effort to show your friends and family how much they mean to you.

Relationships are essential to life. We humans have a natural need for social interaction. Take a look at a lot of people that go on survival TV shows. One of their biggest challenges was simply being alone for so long without anyone to talk to.
You have to go the distance in your adult friendships as you do for your marriage, your business, fitness, or anything else. Why so many people let friendship fall low on the priority list is beyond me, but I think there’s a better way.

I think there’s a nicer way to live. If you want to have fun times, laughs so hard your face locks up, and people who sprint to support and defend you, it starts with relationships. And if you want to have better relationships with the people you care about you have to go the distance and follow through.

Stop putting your friends on the back burner. Carve out time in your calendar, set reminders, make plans, and when those plans arrive next time, don’t allow life’s bullshit get in the way.