Every other Friday, I provide an update on my exercise goals. In between, I’m writing about mental fitness. In the first edition, I discussed not complaining. Today, I discuss friendship. Or not.
I read a book called the 12 Rules for Life that contained some really great advice. One of my favorites was Rule #3:
Make friends with people who want the best for you.
I started thinking about the people in my life. Most of them are decent enough, but that doesn’t mean that I should make time for all of them. In some cases, the relationship is a one-way street. I give a lot and my actions aren’t reciprocated or even appreciated. A little gratitude (is it so hard to say ‘thank you?’) goes a long way, but some are above it.
Part of this is my own fault; I often try too hard to be nice. This behavior is rooted in insecurity. I’ve realized that I act this way because I want people to like me. Now, I see that the result is often the opposite; they walk all over me.
I need to act with confidence instead of insecurity. Shoulders back. Decisiveness. Pleasant, but not overly nice. Stop trying to please so hard.
People Filters
Some folks have salty layers, but I believe that most are good deep down. However, that doesn’t mean that I should have a relationship with all of them.
I need to take a step back from the people that I don’t have healthy relationships with. I won’t be mean, but I’m not going to go out of my way to give energy to a one-sided deal. Dare I say this:
I need to become a little more selfish.
It makes me a little sad to write these words. I’m not sure even why. It’s probably that too nice stuff. Damnit! 🙂
Onward and upward.
When you begin paying attention to relationships / friendships with this filter you get the benefit of high quality friends and individuals in your life. It can feel selfish, but we’ve only got so much time. I’ve decided I want to spend as much of it as I have control over with people who reciprocate wanting to be my best self / their best self and supporting each other in that.
Exactly.
Interesting points…it can be difficult to be a bit selfish at times, especially if it means disappointing someone you care about.
I think it depends how you do it and also to what extent. A common example I see for myself: taking care of myself physically and mentally first. If I’m not doing this consistently, it will likely impede my ability to help others do the same (or anything else). – Mike
Mike @ Balanced Dividends recently posted…Passive Income & Portfolio – April 2018 Update
Don’t confuse self interest, which is vital, with selfishness. To be the best version of yourself, you *have* to curate your relationships. It’s as Jim Rohn said “we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.”
You can’t have people bringing down the average.
That doesn’t mean you shun them or be rude to them, obviously. It just means that you don’t spend too much time or effort maintaining those relationships.
“You can’t have people bringing down the average.”
True.
Some of these people are really good, accomplished people. Better than me. And this is where I struggle. I do need to let them go if the relationship is flawed though.
Sadly, yes. You have to fix the flaw in the relationship, or let them go. It is *HARD*. But you will both be better off for it. Think of it this way: If the relationship is flawed for you, it is likely so for them too, even if they don’t realize it.
Thank you for your words.
I try hard to be nice to everyone too. But I don’t go out of my way to make time for new acquaintances anymore. It’s already hard to keep old friends.
I’m helping coach peewee soccer this season. I don’t need to do it, but it’s helpful and it’s good for me to run around a bit. Everyone wins in this scenario.
Short post. Can you elaborate more? Let’s hear the juicy detail.
Joe recently posted…Why I Still Don’t Buy Overpriced Coffee
Thought provoking to be sure. After listening to your guest spot on millionaires unveiled a couple of days ago I can definitely see that you are a nice guy who likes helping people (plus you take time to write this fun blog:).
I actually don’t think you being “more selfish” by not giving all your energy to one-sided relationships. I think you are being kind to that individual(s) by setting boundaries, boundaries they may need to abide by to live a better life.
It’s weird because we do this all the time with kids… Dad can I have another chocolate? Dad can I play in the street? Dad can you buy (x) for me? The answer of course is no, because I don’t want you to turn into a spoiled brat.
When saying NO to adults, however, it can feel like we are being selfish. I struggle with this all of the time. A few months ago I read a pf article about saying yes to something means saying no to something else. This helps.
I’m beginning to think that saying yes to “this person” may mean saying no to my family (lost time) or no to another worth while purist (lost opportunity).
Really great points here. Thank you.
Good for you! I am sure your life will be much more fulfilling with friends who reciprocate and are grateful :).
About a decade ago I went through this exercise. I had started to feel that I was the one doing all the work in the relationships/friendships. So I consciously stopped making the effort to see what would happen. I would say yes to every invitation or offer to reach out to me, but I would refrain from being the one to reach out. The results: crickets. Literally my phone did not ring, my inbox was empty.
I quizzed a few of these ‘friends’ to ask why I hadn’t heard from them. “Oh, nothing to do with you. I was just busy”.
I came to the conclusion that people take relationships for granted, something that you don’t have to spend time cultivating, (the alternative was to think that I wasn’t worthy of people’s effort), that if I want to have relationships I will have to be the one that does the work to make it happen. It made me very sad at the time. It still makes me sad to think about it as I write this.
I now have no expectation that anyone will make an effort to keep in touch with me. It does happen occasionally, and when it does I am delighted, and I make a point of thanking the person for making the time and effort. But I no longer expect it.
In a perfect world, everyone will realize the importance of working hard to maintain relationships. Until I find that perfect world, I do what I have to do to survive.
veronica-
I’m sorry for this. You sound kind and thoughtful.
I’ve found that most of the people in this community are pretty decent. Have you thought about attending a local meetup? There’s one here in Northern Colorado tomorrow!
You’re probably not local, but there are Choose FI groups everywhere. You may want to consider reaching out to one of them.
last summer i saw a lady i hadn’t seen since she dated my friend about 20 years ago. i was telling her my good fortune in having procured a nice wife in spite of my crusty personality. she said “freddy, i always new better than that.” i asked her not to tell anybody that i was a nice guy.
we had to cut a few people loose when they had nothing further to offer except irritation. we don’t need to be around with “stuff” or “means” as we’re happy to feed and imbibe friends at our expense. we don’t need our friends to agree with every single principle either. my rule at home is i ask you to be mostly polite and be interesting and you’re always welcome.
freddy smidlap recently posted…Travelling for Work? Here’s How I Rocked It!
I am kinda polite (farts can be an issue), but I’m kinda boring. If we ever meet, I’ll pound a couple beers ahead of time to spice up the conversation. 🙂
i tell my chronically underemployed friends who can’t seem to get out of their own way to dab a little scotch behind their ears before any interview just to let them know you mean business. i’m sure you’re welcome any time. blame the farts on the dog like everybody else does.
freddy smidlap recently posted…Will Buying Art Kill Your Financial Independence Dreams?
I battled wanting everyone to like me for years. Maybe the effort wore me down, or maybe it’s the getting older that has helped cure me. Either way, it’s a great change. I realized that I have just as much a right to be here, to have opinions, to want friends to initiate with me, to say no, to say yes, and whatever else being an individual brings.
Once I came to that, there were a few emotional vampires in my life I had to attend to. I had spent so much energy and countless hours tending to them. Suddenly it was clear how personally costly and how little these relationships served me. Like Veronica did above, I backed off, and to my surprise, no one came looking for me. Rather, they found someone else to fill the gap I left.
This is actually a really happy story, so don’t feel bad for me! I now invest in mutually beneficial relationships- because we all deserve some freakin reciprocation, do we not?! That quote from Jim Rohn is so true. Pursuing quality people and being a quality friend is life-transforming.
Kara@provincialtable recently posted…This Week In The Garden: Installing Irrigation and Tomato Seedlings
Emotional vampires. That’s a great way to put it.
I’m glad that clearing your house led you to a better place. I hope mine does too.
Sometimes you have to stop caring so much about what (most) other people think. I don’t think it has anything to do with being ‘selfish’. As others have mentioned, self care enables/enhances the ability to care and spend emotional energy on others.
There’s a lot of research that says you can only maintain a handful of close quality relationships/friendships at once. Consider prioritizing your closest/most important family and friends – you’ll probably find that a lot of the others are friends of geography or convenience… the parents of your kids’ friends, the neighbors, the (former) coworkers… acquaintances and ‘friends’ of a particular time and place – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but they may not be the most meaningful relationships for you to lavish attention on right now. Spend the time on them that they deserve and it’s ok to gradually let those relationships go dormant if they are not fulfilling.
As for this: “Some of these people are really good, accomplished people. Better than me. And this is where I struggle. I do need to let them go if the relationship is flawed though”
How can they be ‘better’ than you (‘accomplishment’ and ‘success’ do not make you a good person) if they are not a good partner in your friendship?
I have had similar experiences as you. I bought girl scout cookies from a friend’s kid for over 10 years, but when I asked for sponsors for a charity event, not a peep from him. I introduced an ex-coworker at a dead-end job to my company and helped him secure a position, he could well be worth 9 figures now because of that job move. Our group of guys that left the original company all talked about getting him out of there, but I was the only one who took any action. I never even got a thank you or a treat to lunch from him. I had another friend whom I drove to the DMV for her driving test, to the airport for flights, invited her family over a few times for dinner, and gave her a lot of advice regarding real estate investing; she never invited us over for her events. I’ve loaned varying amounts of money to dozens of friends and acquaintances, and not one has ever paid me back (I don’t ever expect to be paid back when I make a loan). Heck, even a $4,000 loan I made to one of my sisters took 4 years to be paid back, and she and her husband are medical doctors with specializations. Just a few stories out of many.
My other sister was friends with an ex-coworker for over 10 years. Her and her husband used to attend my sister’s Christmas party every year. Her husband would do my sister and brother-in-law’s taxes every year. After over 10 years of doing their taxes, he finally got fed up and wrote my brother-in-law stating that they were no longer going to attend the Christmas party. All those years he offered his services for free, and when his dad died my brother-in-law didn’t even offer condolences. Well, honestly my sister and brother-in-law are not very good with social skills. My brother-in-law felt terrible when he realized how their friend felt. He apologized and sent him a $10,000 check, but they never were friends again.
“Make friends with people who want the best for you.”
How easy is it to meet someone who wants the best for you? You have to invest a lot of time into a relationship to even know if the other person wants the best for you. Easier said than done…
I’m sorry to hear about your experiences.
“You have to invest a lot of time into a relationship to even know if the other person wants the best for you.”
We see if our actions are reciprocated. For example, if we’ve invited you over 4x for dinner and you didn’t do it even once, we’re probably not going to invite you again.
Sometimes, you can tell if people are selfish too. A reader had a comment a while ago that went something like this:
“If I’ve asked them more than 3 questions and they haven’t asked me one, I give up on the conversation and probably the person.”
However, I’ve also found that insecure people can behave in strange ways (talking about themselves too much).
Relationships are a form of investment. You put energy (and even money) in, and you get energy back.
Like financial investments, there are good relationship investments. Some relationships pay off big time, infusing your life with positivity, humor, compassion.
And of course there are relationships that are bad investments, with no upside.
We all need to be a little more intentional with how we choose our relationships!
Tieing it back to investing! Nice!
I feel like it’s the same as on an airplane… secure your mask first before you help others.
There’s a great book you should read, The virtue of selfishness – Ayn Rand. It’s a bunch of her essays. And while I don’t subscribe to her thinking 100%, it certainly is food for thought.
Now I’m just hoping we make the cut.
try living for ourselves makes us happier but lonelier