To choose your friends should seem simple for any adult, but is it really so, when too many times adults mistake admiration for adoration.
If it was easy to make that distinction, then why are there so many tyrants and demagogues?
Because many times, people are lazy.
When you do not do the work to identify who should be your friend, the consequences can be, at best, uncomfortable.
At worst, you can give your affirmation to someone who turns out to be a very unwelcome person.
The fact is, when it comes to designing your own life, you cannot afford to be lazy.
Know Yourself
Doing the research does not mean using books and theories to identify if someone is a good match for you.
Your simple research actually begins with you.
Who are you?
What do you want as a person you should admire.
And most importantly, if you become friends, what do you expect from you towards that person.
What level of happiness are you in search of?
When you know what you want in a friend, it is easier to recognize when you find one.
Know What Others Want
It is important to be aware of the desires that drive others.
Because if you are going to be friends with them you need to know what you are getting into as far as a relationship is concerned.
Do they want admiration from you…or adulation?
There is a big difference.
You must know what level of admiration you want to expend in return.
A person who wants only adulation from you may not be the person you want to spend a lot of time with…That is in my opinion of course.
Would you want to befriend someone who wants more of your admiration than you want to give?
It is your life and you choose who will receive the benefit of your friendship.
Your Friendship Is A Gift
You reserve sharing gifts for special people.
And it is with this in mind that you make a decision to choose your friends well.
Don’t be lazy in this performing this task.
This is where many fail to see the mistake until it is too late.
When they eventually find out the truth they change their personality.
They actually become someone else, so ashamed are they about their decsion.
When you know yourself, you will not allow yourself to go down into that rabbit hole.
And when friendship is a gift, you choose when to share it.
Choose Your Friends
Choosing friends is a big thing for some people.
One way you want to deal with that is to have a sense of the size of the friend circle you want to develop.
Some people are lucky enough to have more than one best friend.
Many don’t have one.
I used to have one for instance.
It turned out that my friend was not my friend at all.
I learned a lesson from that and it is part of why I can write this.
Choosing well is very necessary, and you can’t do so if you are lazy.
And it must not include only your admiration of the person but rather, what they think of you.
Assessing early what they think of you is more important than anything else.
It eliminates those unfortunate one sided relationships.
Friends Of Value
If your friend is not creating value in your relationship with him or her, then you need to eliminate that friendship.
Once you find out that is the case, delete, dissolve or eliminate that friendship immediately.
The friends you want to have are those that create value in your relationship and you, value in theirs.
Where there is no exchange of value, there should be no committed relationship.
Designing A Great Life
Value is what you use to design a great life…You give it and receive it.
The more of it you have the better the relationship.
And value goes both ways, it goes from you to your friend and vice versa.
Value can be psychological, mental, comforting, encouragement and even monetary.
That is why it is important to choose your friends.
Some will exclude money from such a relationship.
Actually, you should not think that value is only money.
It is what you share with the person, other than money, to make their life better.
The more you focus on value, the easier it is to design a great life.
Avoid Being Duped
When you do the work of choosing your friends, you have less of a chance that you will be duped by some arbitrary person.
Unfortunately, there are people who look for opportunities to exploit other people.
The better you get identifying such people, the easier it becomes.
You know which criteria to use and you set about creating the world you want, including the friends who you want to spend time with.
At that time you cannot invest precious time with those who do not fit your criteria.
Build The Life You Want
Now you are ready to build the life you want with the friends you want.
They contribute to your life and you do the same for theirs.
This kind of symiotic relationship between good friends is beneficial to both.
There is no room for the petty emotions of jealousy and other time wasting situations.
Thus you have the time and the drive to build the life you want.
Friendship Is Sacred
It is so, and because it is, you should be ready to give it the treatment that is due.
When you consider it in that way, it is easier to invest the time to improve on it.
That time is valuable because the friendship means something special to you.
You are affirmed by it and it is your responsibility to do the same.
Since no one is perfect, it is important that once you consider a friendship as valuable, you do all that you could to focus only on the strengths of the relationship.
In doing so, you de-emphasize the negatives which will exist.
They will exist because, no one of us is perfect.
Your mission is to encourage and build your friend up to a level that makes them as valuable as you are, in the relationship.
It is why you chose this person as your friend.
There is developed, a sacred bond that you both understand and want.
If You Are Friendless
You can become friendless when you encounter people who do not fit your criteria of friendship.
There is nothing wrong with that if being so maintains your wholeness.
If you find that you want friendships but find that you always cause the break up, then examine yourself.
There probably is something you will have to fix.
Friendship for just the sake of it is not what we are talking about here.
It must be meaningful with a goal of designing for you a great life.
If you don’t want to or can’t invest the time into creating the kind of friendship that works for both parties, then it might be better to stay friendless.
It is also a choice.
Conclusion
The rewards of friendship are available to you if you so choose to be a friend, or you can choose to be friendless.
It is up to you how you choose your friends.
Just know that if you choose to maintain a friendship, it needs maintenance.
You invest your time and equity to ensure that you meet up to your responsibilities in the relationship.
Relationships like these help you to design a great life just the way you want to live it.
They also help others do the same.
If there is any way to improve on what we say here, let us know in the comments.