Cherish Those That Make An Effort

Life these days can feel like controlled chaos. It seems like everyone is getting pulled in a million different directions and the most common response to “How’s it going?” is “Insanely busy” or “I have no idea where time is going”.

The holidays are one of my favorite times of the year. It’s one of the few times when people make a genuine effort to see and spend time with friends and family. I’m writing this post at a brewery in West Chester, Pennsylvania. I’m looking around the room and see a handful of different groups. They’re laughing together and a few of the conversations I happened to overhear were all around catching up with each other.

Levante Brewing Company

While I was here, I randomly ran into a good friend, Drew, I lost touch with about ten years ago. He and I hung out all the time back in the day. And we lost touch for no other reason than life gets in the way and we now live 1,700 miles away from each other. It was awesome to see Drew and reconnect nonetheless. And we both said we need to catch up more often. (I wish I thought to get a picture of us before he left).

Over the last few years, I've had other friendships fall by wayside for no other reason than that. But I've had friendships with a few friends change or lost that were very dear to me, for other reasons. The lost friendships that are the hardest though are the ones where you try to remain connected but the other person no longer makes the effort, despite all your best efforts to stay connected. Regardless of the reason, the loss of a close, tight friendship or relationship is always hard. It can be tough coming to terms when someone who was such a big part of your life, someone who was really special, no longer holds that space for you. Sometimes friendships just run their course but that doesn’t make it any easier.

One of the four primary tenets of good health that the Institute of Integrative Nutrition advocates, what resonated with me about that school, is personal relationships. I actually touched on this in my last post about the gut-brain connection. One of the ways to improve your health is social connection. The warm feeling that we get from interacting with friends, loved ones and our community can foster positive emotions. Positive emotions is one way to reduce stress.

Time is our most precious commodity and it can often be taken for granted. You can make more money, but you can’t make more time. A quote a friend once said to me: “Don’t waste your time on someone who doesn’t make time for you.” Now admittedly, that's a bit harsh in these days of hectic lives and precious little time, but it raises something bigger and more positive - When someone gives you their time, it’s a portion of their life that they’ll never get back, which leads me to the point of this:

Cherish the people who ask you to get together. Cherish those people who reach out to ask how you’re doing. Cherish the people who send you random texts. Cherish the people who make the effort to call and see you. Cherish those who love you when you have nothing to offer but your company. And if you have the power to make someone happy or brighten someone’s day, do it. The world needs more of that.

If you take one thing from this little stream of consciousness, it’s this: Appreciate those who make an effort. In these days of hectic lives and precious little time, those are rare and amazing people. The best feeling in the world is knowing you mean something to someone.

For those that made the effort to spend time with me this year - Thank You!