00:00:03:03 – 00:00:23:18
Speaker 1
Hello, friends. Welcome back to the blog. Thanks for coming back to watch again tonight. Setting up here having my reflection time in in my bedroom. So the audio may be a little bit different to the recording of my AirPods and not the good mics, but I hope it’s good enough for you to follow along for a little bit.
00:00:24:07 – 00:00:54:10
Speaker 1
And I’m thinking through this thing about friends right now. I mean, journaling a ton about, you know, friendships and the quality of friendships and the groups of friends you have. And, you know, the group of friends I have. And just the research behind it. So interesting, you know, you get a little bit older. I don’t know about you guys, but I start to I started researching the science behind friends and understanding the meaningfulness in the relationships that I allow myself to be in.
00:00:54:11 – 00:01:20:19
Speaker 1
So I’m kind of on this journey where I’m I’m kind of learning about my friendships as far as, you know, how they affect me, how they make me feel, how, how I want to grow current friendships and future friendships. And then reflecting a little bit on my past friendships so that, you know, I don’t go down roads I might have been on before or or I go back down a road that I might have abandoned before because I’m no longer in those friendships.
00:01:21:27 – 00:01:51:24
Speaker 1
So just a couple of things that I’ve been doing lately as far as the research. I read a book as part of the program online called The Happiness Advantage, and it’s about a doctor that surveyed students, followed around students, studied students at Harvard to understand what made them happy. And it was kind of funny because the research in it kind of smacks you in the face as the most clear scientific research of things you just knew already.
00:01:52:28 – 00:02:20:27
Speaker 1
But it’s super interesting stuff. I would definitely recommend you read it, but it just a couple of the things that hit me in the face was just the reactions people have that affect you positively or negatively, change the mood in the room, change your mood. He talks very specifically in this one piece about going outside on a pretty dreary day and talking to two different individuals in the courtyard of the university.
00:02:22:03 – 00:02:42:20
Speaker 1
And he had one conversation with an individual that he said, man, weather out here today. Right. And it was kind of a rainy day every day. And I said, yeah, weather weather’s all bad today. I’m feeling bad. Gosh, I don’t even want to be out here right now. And it really brought down the mood when talked to another person and he said, man, what about the weather out here today?
00:02:42:20 – 00:03:03:23
Speaker 1
And I said, Yeah, it’s a little bit drizzly, dreary. But what about being able to be outside right now? And I was like, Man, it’s just so awesome. When somebody hits you with some thankfulness or hits you with some positivity that you didn’t expect. You know, you typically don’t go out on a rainy day and meet a person that looks at you and said, I love how wet it is out here right now.
00:03:03:23 – 00:03:27:19
Speaker 1
I’m so happy to be here. But, you know, this was kind of the science behind that interaction being so positive and really driving that person’s attitude. When I kind of look at that, I always think, you know, I hope that I’m perceiving this the right way. And in conversations I’ve had kind of asking some of my friends, you know, I’ve always been the guy in the group that tries to be positive, whether things are really bad.
00:03:29:09 – 00:03:51:06
Speaker 1
You know, I’m typically trying to make people laugh. I’ve got a ton of bad jokes that I tell my friends and they seem to love, but I think they might be. Humor me just a little bit, but I always try to be that guy getting up and having fun, and I thought about how that might have positively or negatively changed my interactions past, present and future.
00:03:51:06 – 00:04:13:18
Speaker 1
Because, you know, as a result of that, I haven’t been allowed to, in some cases, just be a sad person and have a bad day and be upset and commiserate and be commiserated with. You know, people in my friend groups tend to see me as the tough one, you know, is the one who’s, you know, just kind of positive no matter what.
00:04:15:01 – 00:04:55:24
Speaker 1
So as I look to my friendships kind of currently, I think I used to have this big friend group when I was younger, but now I have this very tight circle of friends. You know, I have typically in the past had mostly female friends because, you know, just the way I relate to people, I’ve had mostly female friends because just the way I relate to people and kind of thing to do that I’ve got mostly male friends right now in my friend group, much tighter circle and just a bunch of guys I hang out with and have fun with and you know, talk bro stuff and watch football, watch UFC fights, things like that.
00:04:55:24 – 00:05:17:27
Speaker 1
But I have a small group of friends now that I can talk to about the things that hurt me to things that bother me, the things that make me feel bad. And it’s really got me thinking about relationships I’ve had in the past with people that I might have been toxic to them because they had this bad day going on.
00:05:17:27 – 00:05:38:28
Speaker 1
And I just tried to inject this positivity into a place where they weren’t ready for that yet, and I wonder how that might have affected my past friendships and maybe why I don’t have some people in my life, you know, some some people are in my life because, you know, being honest with the process, their periods in my life where I just saw, you know, I was not a good friend.
00:05:38:28 – 00:06:04:01
Speaker 1
I was not a good, nice person. And, you know, there were things that I did I’ve done wrong. You know, there’s things that I tried to do, right? And there were people that weren’t meant for me and they’re people I wasn’t meant for. So reflecting on that now, I’ve come to this point where I’m kind of thinking about, you know, what makes a good friend to me and who do I allow in my life?
00:06:05:03 – 00:06:30:16
Speaker 1
When you’re younger, you basically, you know, open yourself up to most friendships now really mature people which to be honest, I’ve only had like five or six really mature friends in my life who could do this from the beginning of time where they could just say, No, this person is not for me, but most people will try people out, you know, and kind of let everybody in it lead you down these interesting roads, sometimes they lead you down.
00:06:30:16 – 00:06:56:11
Speaker 1
These lifelong friendship roads. Sometimes that leads you down. These very temporary friendships where things end badly and it causes you trauma, you know, all this kind of nonsense surrounding you. But, you know, I’ve I’ve been on both sides, my friend Matt and I, who lives in Florida, we’ve been friends for 38, 21, 31 years, you know, since we were very young boys.
00:06:57:09 – 00:07:20:10
Speaker 1
And it’s so neat where we haven’t lived near each other. We don’t see each other that often. But when we do see each other, it’s it’s like nothing changed. It’s like nothing ended. It just starts right back up. We can talk about those little things and that’s a place of comfort to me. So that’s like one of those friendships where I’m like, Man, I invested in this early on and this is a person I let in who I could be a lifelong friend with.
00:07:21:10 – 00:07:42:07
Speaker 1
There’s friendships I have now currently that I can see being very lifelong. My buddy David Daniel Joe, which you guys are good to meet on my podcast. You know, in the future, you know, we’re a tight friend group. We’re all very similar minded, which I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I think we’re kind of crazy sometimes.
00:07:42:07 – 00:08:06:25
Speaker 1
Sometimes the the the humor gets a little too far, but it’s kind of fun. You know, I enjoy hanging out with my friend group and being able to talk to guys that are like me and that know me well and aren’t ashamed of who I am. Because it’s kind of bullet point two that I wrote on here was that, you know, one of the things I want to avoid in my future is people that are ashamed of who I am as a person.
00:08:07:16 – 00:08:39:18
Speaker 1
Whether that’s a physical flaw, you know, is, you know, I have been body shamed in the past and, you know, I don’t want to be with people that want to do that. To me, whether it’s an emotional flaw where, you know, somebody makes me feel bad about something that I really, really love or makes me feel bad about loving or liking someone else or makes me feel bad about the way I believe, whether it’s a spiritual flaw where we can’t or political flaw, you know, spiritual, political sometimes can be a little bit a little bit too close to each other.
00:08:40:09 – 00:09:06:18
Speaker 1
But, you know, someone that doesn’t we don’t agree politically. We don’t agree spiritually. So we can’t be friends. I don’t want to be around people like that any more in my life. And it it’s weird to say that, right, because, you know, I’m a very spiritual, spiritual person and I love Lebanon people. I love meeting people. But I’ve also got to learn where the cut off is between people I meet that are acquaintances.
00:09:06:18 – 00:09:32:07
Speaker 1
You know, that are, you know, that are Tuesday friends and people that are, you know, lifelong friends. So either way, all the scrambling to say, I’m really I’m really I’m really studying my friendships right now. I’m really putting a lot of time into thinking about my relationships. And, you know, I would love to hear from you about, you know, what are the traits you see in a good friend.
00:09:32:07 – 00:09:50:26
Speaker 1
Because I think at 38 years old, I’m still trying to figure out somewhat what I like about people and what I want in a friend. You know, I’m trying to figure out the kind of people that I want to hang out with all the time versus the people I want to hang out with. Every once in a while.
00:09:51:18 – 00:10:07:03
Speaker 1
I’m trying to figure out, you know, who I can see sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair within 20 years versus who I can see in every ten years. And that would be just fine. So I’d love to hear about, you know, what you’re thinking with your friendship. I’d love to hear your life long friendship stories.
00:10:07:20 – 00:10:26:27
Speaker 1
And I would love to just be just blessed and enlightened by your by your stories. So, again, I thank you guys for being on this journey with me and watching along. And I hope you get something out of this. And I hope that, you know, in turn, I can be blessed by your stories. Thanks so much.