When it
comes to our physical and mental health, friendship may truly
be the best medicine. An Australian
study (link is external) showed that strong social networks may lengthen
survival in elderly men and women, with good friends being even more likely to
increase longevity than close family members.
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Think about what kind of friend you want to be, as you consider these five tips for keeping your friendships strong throughout the years:
1. Be
Honest:-
Relationships
built on false build-ups or phony facades are only as good as their foundation.
Superficial relationships often fizzle over time. To achieve a solid
friendship, you have to be honest with each other. Being able to offer and
receive feedback from someone you trust is a gift that can easily be
overlooked. Setting aside your ego and being willing to let someone know you
and ask questions of you is invaluable. Friends are likely to ask the tough
questions—“Why do you think you’re attracted to that person?” or, “Do you think
you might be feeling jealousor hurt in this situation?” Having a friend who can tell it to you straight
will help you know yourself better. Being able to reciprocate further
challenges you to live with honesty, directness, and integrity. There is no way
to feel more connected to someone than to open yourself up to them. Plus,
keeping an honest dialogue helps prevent you from building up cynicism and
boiling over in a moment when you feel triggered.
2.
Repair Misattunements:-
When you
know someone well, you’re familiar with their strengths as well as with their
weaknesses. And so, just as you know how to cheer them up, you know exactly how to tear them down. In moments of
tension, we can let things slip out that are far more hurtful to our closest
friends because they come from us. No
one is perfect. We are all sure to mess up at times, but when we do, we have to
set pride aside and repair the situation. Being honest shouldn't be about being
cruel. Finding a balance where you can say what you think without being
parental, defining, or judgmental is important to keeping a level of trust
between you and a friend.
When you
make a mistake, apologize for it. Make sure the friend understands that your
intention is not to hurt or punish. Explain
where you went wrong and what you mean by saying sorry. And don’t be afraid to
be the one who reaches out; we all have either been part of, or known pairs of
friends who’ve stopped speaking for months, because neither individual would
come forward to admit fault. Time is precious and not worth wasting, especially
when it comes to the people who make us happy.
3. Make
Time and Show Appreciation:-
The
familiarity and comfort we feel with another person can sometimes leave us
crossing lines or forgetting to show gratitude. As with
a spouse, partner, children, or family, we have to find time to make real
contact with friends in order for the relationship to flourish. Slipping into
routine can leave us more likely to take friends for granted. Make sure to
express how you feel, and take actions that show how well you know and care for
them. Generosity
is the key to happiness.
A good friend shows interest in who we are and what we struggle with, but it is
important not to let the relationship become one-sided or to become
self-centered in your focus.
Be sure
to engage in acts of kindness and consideration that are focused on your
friends. Do the things that they would
perceive as caring. Consider their
interests and passions when planning a way to say thank you. A woman I know
used to plan over-the-top birthday parties for her best friend. After years of
this, her friend quietly confessed to her that these lavish affairs made her
feel uncomfortable and shy
and that she’d much rather go out to a casual dinner with a few friends. The
revelation led the friend to realize that her party planning had always been
more about her than her friend. She wasn’t truly considering her
friend’s feelings when planning an act of acknowledgement.
4. Alter
Your Expectations and Don’t Make Assumptions:-
In any
relationship, we can start to impose certain expectations on others that set us
up to feel hurt or disappointed. Don’t be quick to pick apart your friends.
Accept that they are human and that they will make mistakes. We may show our
friendship in one way, whether through affection, favors, or gifts, but we
shouldn’t necessarily expect the same from them.
Don’t assume what your friends are thinking; check it out instead. And accept
that you could be wrong about their viewpoint—every individual possesses a
sovereign mind and their own perceptions of the world. They may, in turn, have
a very different way of expressing their feelings, or showing that they care. A
close friend of mine, whom I’ve known since we were kids, rarely remembers to
buy me a gift on my birthday. It would be easy to use this fact to feel bad, to
build a case that she’s forgetful or just doesn’t care about me the way I care
for her. But that would be far from the truth. She simply shows warmth in other
ways, often bringing me books she thinks I will love, picking
up my favorite tea, or sitting to talk with me for hours when she suspects I’m
not feeling my best.
5.
Choose Compassion Over Cynicism:-
A good
rule of thumb when it comes to our relationships is to care more about doing what’s right than being right. When you get to know a person,
you get to know their worst traits, and it’s easy to become cynical toward
those negative aspects of their personality. It’s
far more preferable to be compassionate.
Compassion keeps us vulnerable instead of tough and guarded, or seeing the
world through a negative lens.Compassion, then, is its own reward, as it leaves us
feeling good within ourselves regardless of how a friend may be behaving. Being
honest and straightforward without being cynical is perhaps the most important quality of a good friend.
