Category Archives: Collaboration

Friends and Aquaintances

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It's fascinating to me that in this day and age of Myspace and Facebook there is no longer a relational category of "aquaintance".  Everyone is a "friend". 

The problem is, we aren't quite sure what a friend is.  Modern American friendships have lost the force and importance they once had. C. S. Lewis for example, in his The Four Loves, writes:

"To the Ancients, friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it".

According to a 2006 study documented in the journal the American Sociological Review, since 1985 Americans are thought to be suffering a loss in the quality and quantity of close friendships. The study states 25% of Americans have no close confidants, and the average total number of confidants per citizen has dropped from four to two.

In the age of social networking, we are all alone.

But in the avalanche of ceaseless change, we need good friends to migrate with us through its intensity. In your social network who are your friends and who are your aquaintances.  The distinction is important. How do you know? 

To me, an aquaintence is more like a CEO. You know, the boss that keeps you on task, highlights the bottom line, and has the power to promote or demote depending on your performance.  They put conditions on your future behavior and leverage your vulnerabilities as a show of their managerial finesse in helping you.  

We all need people to play that role in our lives, but as aquaintances, not friends. A friend is uniquely suited to nurture your soul and invigorate your thinking.  It is a relationship of mutual caring and intimacy among one another. A friend is one who knows you as a person and regards you for who you are and not what he or she is looking for in a good friend. 

A friend suffers fools because we all are fools from time to time. Aquaintances don't put up with our crap for long. Friends do, thank God.  Savor the following quote from Frederick Buechner as you reflect on friends in your life.

“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality–not as we expect it to be but as it is–is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.”

It’s On

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Southwest Airlines launched a new Ad Campaign on June 1st aimed at tough times. At the end of the ad a narrator intones that the airline doesn’t fly around tough times. It’s on, and they’re ready.

It’s on for all us…

It’s on every time our minds persist in discouraging thoughts.

It’s on every time we think we can go it alone without the camaraderie of those who care.

It’s on every time we stubbornly refuse to admit our fear and hide behind a facade of platitudes.

It’s on every time we avoid nourishing our souls with silent listening, contemplation, and transcendent faith.

It’s on every time our decisions preclude others who are in greater need.

It’s on every time we become too enamored with our technology to solve our problems.

It’s on every time we rely on massive military might to secure our happiness.

It’s on every time we stop taking initiative for the health of our relationships.

It’s on every time we live without grace.

This is the time of our lives. It’s tough. It’s on. Are you ready?

The constants of change

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My main focus over the last twenty years has been helping people effectively migrate through the quandaries of contemporary change.  Without a doubt, the recent perplexities we are encountering are unprecedented in their scope and the challenges for us is extraordinary indeed.

I've discovered too the irony that change is consistent in its effects.  The larger the scope of the change the greater these constants seem to become:

1) It is frightening: Change makes the world seem less predictable.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inaugural address took on an unusually solemn, religious
quality, and for good reason. By 1933 the depression had reached its
depth and the nation was struggling. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address outlined in broad terms how
he hoped to govern and reminded Americans that the nation’s “common
difficulties” concerned “only material things.”  It is in this address he uttered the now infamous words, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself". 

We must learn to harness fear's energy and make it our heart's ally and not its enemy. 

2) It is threatening: Change implies that what exists now is inadequate

-We can get so confident in the way we've done things in the past, that it is can be a surprising and agonizing moment to discover that it no longer works for our current condition.  When we are threatened by change we usually choose one of three stances in reponse: Retreat, Retrench, or Relaunch.  For me relaunching is the most adventuresome and leads to richer discoveries and deeper redemption.

3) It is embarrassing: Change requires admitting and understanding our past errors.

-Being vulnerable is one of the most powerful attributes we can harness.  I believe it requires two elements: Humor and Honesty.  Laughing at ourselves is one the most mature defense mechanisms human beings have at their disposal.  In spiritual terms, it is the closest we can come to confession. Being vulnerable forces us to get to the heart of the matter in deliberately open ways. It means not pointing fingers at people or the past.  It means taking responsibility. Honestly interrogating our hearts during change is the first step in moving through change unencumbered by anxiety, insecurity and blame.