Friendship, Part 1

"Listen to me. We're always sitting here. I'm always helping you with your girl problems, you're always helping me with my girl problems. Where do we end up?"

"Here."

"Exactly. Because neither one of us can handle a woman all by ourselves."

"I'm trying."

"I've tried. We don't have it. But maybe the two of us, working together, at full capacity, could do the job of one normal man."

"Then each of us would only have to be like a half-man. That sounds about right."

- George and Jerry, in "The Summer of George"

I really believe that isolation is the enemy.  Don't get me wrong, time spent by yourself and being able to be alone is a good thing.  Constantly being social and busy with people is usually not good even for people who are people-people.  We all need input and extended time of isolation either by choice or by circumstance is not good.  Why?  Because we all have incomplete ideas about ourselves, relationships, and the world.  These "incomplete ideas" limits our own ability to do the very thing we think we are good at...acting in our own best interest. 

We all have the best intentions for ourselves.  We try very hard to control, or make life the way we want it for ourselves.  Most balanced people(you know who you are, or do you?) do not seek to harm themselves.  I think that is a fair assumption.  Fight or flight right?  And yet, I have never met anyone who has all the answers(of the non-virgin birth variety).  Nor have I ever met someone who always makes the best choices for themselves.  Some of us are better at some things than others.  No one is complete.  We need input, other ideas, and perspective. 

Friends can play a huge role in expanding our concepts about ourselves.  Friends are those people that we like and have something in common with.  Just because someone is your "friend" doesn't mean they are helpful.  Friends can be people we do stuff with, or friends that keep things light and fun, and maybe that is why we like them because they don't challenge our thinking.  Or maybe we have friends that tell us exactly what we want to hear...all the time.  What we need are friends that can be honest with us.  Friends that can be trusted with sensitive information, but are willing to ask hard questions because they care.  What we need are friends that will risk the friendship for our benefit.  Being willing to take a risk and say the hard things to snap us out of our limited and incomplete view of ourselves. 

We don't see ourselves very well, either we think too little of ourselves or we think too highly of ourselves.  We need help to see.  Evaluate your friendships to see if your friends can help you with your blindness.  Or may be it's the blind leading the blind.

Shawn