500+ friends and yet so few friends

likes by Philip Dodson
likes by Philip Dodson

We have collectively created a world where we have confused more of something to be better than less. Whatever happened to quality?

500 friends on Facebook seems amazing, wow so many friends! It’s especially amazing to a generation that grew up before Facebook, yes I am that old. We used to have maybe 5-6 friends, who we might phone or see once a week, they were typically local, not living in Australia or Bali or Venezuela. We’d often grown up with them, known their families, and went to school together.

Now we break into a mild hysterical panic if one of our ‘friends’ does not reply within minutes.

We believe we are so popular in our dopamine fueled Nirvana of ‘likes’,’hearts’, ‘Wows’ and ‘Hahas’, yet how many of the 500 are real true friends that we truly connect to and who will be there for us whatever?

Of course, social media enables us to share things and keep connected with distant friends. But it isn’t a replacement for life, as in real life.

We can get everything in an instant in our world, but real friendships aren’t created in an instant.

They are not made online.

Focus on real people, in real-time and in the physical world, not the digital one.

If it feels like hard work

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If something you are doing, or a relationship/friendship, in fact anything, if it feels like hard work, forced or it does not come naturally, then it’s not worth continuing.

If it feels like an effort, if it feels like you’re the one who’s trying and not the other, if your work feels like a struggle, if whatever you are doing just feels like a challenge, it’s because it is not right.

The things, people or activities we love never feel like hard work if they are truly right. Loving something or someone is natural thing, a joy, and never a struggle. You want to do it more than anything else.

Once you find the right thing, person, activity, or work, yes you have to value it, cherish, nurture and spend time.However, it will never be a burden or a chore, it will never drain your energy.

Yet so many spend their lives fighting what they love to continue the struggle.

Don’t struggle, be with people you love, do things that are a joy.

Do what comes instinctively and naturally.