What I Learned about Friendship
You will find your people sooner or later.
We are social creatures by nature, so it is undeniable that we need people. We crave connection. We need people to listen to us, to give us advice, to help us when we are in trouble. However, surrounding ourselves with the wrong people can be very uncomfortable.
You cannot change your friends, but you can change who you are friends with.
If the people around you make you question your worth and there is an emotional cost to being with them, it may be a sign that you need to distance yourself. Don’t beg for a connection. Once you step away, you will discover many people who genuinely love you and accept you for who you are — not who they expect you to be.
You just have to find your people. The place where you belong.
It is important to have good people around us, especially when life is already hard. They can provide support that we once thought we didn’t need. They can help us discover aspects of ourselves that we didn’t know existed. They can help us understand ourselves better.
People come and go in your life, that’s how it goes.
It is not your fault if a friendship ends. Sometimes it ends not because of a problem, but because you and your friends have reached different stages in life where you cannot find alignment. You grow, and so do your friends. Perhaps along the way there are differences in values and interests, or you simply become occupied with your own lives, and the friendship drifts apart.
I have some friends that I haven’t spoken to in years. We went to different colleges and had different life experiences. But after graduation, we had a chance to talk and see each other. It’s unique to see how life can bring us back together after being apart for so long.
I also have a good friend with whom we have a low-maintenance friendship. We may only see each other once a year, but the feeling remains the same. On the other hand, I also have many friends where the drifting apart remains.
If both people are willing to make an effort to maintain the friendship — in other words, if it is not one-sided or unrequited — there is always a chance to keep connecting.
Now that I am in my twenties, I feel it is important to have good friends. We need different friends for different aspects of our lives. I have friends I can hang out with, friends I can casually talk to about my life problems, and friends I can seek professional advice from because we share an interest in the same industry.
The best people in life are free and you will find your people sooner or later.
In the meantime, while you are trying to find your people, work on yourself so that you can also be a good friend for them.
