On Friendship

I have lamented the state of busy-ness in American society for several reasons. One of those is the lack of time we devote to friendship. We often treat it as a luxury that we’ll get to when time permits.

One of the reasons Joel and I started the Lead Balloons Podcast was to maintain and build our friendship. We were having interesting discussions and felt that other folks might want to listen in. Although we’ve been seeking to understand how we can appeal to what our audience might like, we’ve made it a priority for our podcast to continue to be a source of enjoyment for us.

When you take time to survey your own life, do you find that you are making time for the friendships that really matter to you? If not, why not? You may not regard friendship as that important to you. But I suspect that most do.

Understand that our culture militates against your esteem of simple pleasures. It will goad you towards the twin poles of self-abnegation and big-ticket consumerism. That is to say, “Work long, stressful hours, denying yourself daily pleasures like long chats by the fire, so that you can buy that shiny toy to show off to your neighbors.” Beware!

Consider, rather, the invitation to enjoy long, sumptuous meals; engaging conversations; or game nights with friends. Appropriate daily pleasures instead of being convinced that accumulating more and more stuff while working frenetically is the key to the good life.