A Frog that Didn’t Know He was Boiling
When I made the jump to adulthood, I found my first full-time job a thousand miles away from my nearest buddies. I don’t think any of us really stopped to think, but looking back now, we were all moving away. Nothing wrong with that but I’m not sure we considered what we were giving up.
When work started, it kept me moving and meeting new people. I made new friends and then started hanging out with people after work and weekends. Some of the slightly older people I had become friends with started to move to new jobs and other places. Sadly some of these friends I considered to be part of my “core friend group”. It didn’t matter too much because it wasn’t long before I moved jobs and started over too.
From there, I bought a house and moved out on my own. Some more buddies from work switched jobs and moved a couple hours away. Then some of our friends had kids and all of a sudden, my weekly friend group had shrunk to almost nobody. I was a boiling frog! *
So why did this happen…
It was really more about how my life was evolving. This has been a hard pill to swallow because I still remember the good old days and miss my old friends.
Do I still love my old friends? Hell, Yes! Do I still stay in contact with them? Yes! We will still keep up with our old friends, plan trips together but they aren’t going to be our everyday friends anymore. Yea, kind of depressing but not all is lost and I’ll get to that in a second.
Contemplating this, my conclusion is that life is just friggin complicated and you can’t be sitting on your butt waiting for the “good old times” to come around again when you could be out there making new memories.
Friends Should be Kites, Not Anchors
Just like the college kid who goes home every weekend of freshman year and has a hard time making friends, we need to be aware of our old friendships. Are we spending too much time trying to stay connected and are those connections healthy for us? Are they giving us energy and propelling us through life or are they a drag?
Whatever the case, we need to remember that people rotate in and out of our lives and we can swim against this current or we can learn to swim with it. Just remember there are good times to be had with new people and all we need to do is find them.
So how do adults find good friends?
Find a Hobby and You Will Find a Friend
One of the best ways to make friends and join a community is to find a hobby. Gatherings happen all across the world based on people’s hobbies. Whether it is remote planes, metal working, quilt making, paragliding, disc golf or reading books, there is a community out there for you.
Now I’ll stop here for a second because there is one trap that I have fallen into and many people I know fall into. Don’t think that Youtube, Pintrest, forums or Facebook will ever substitute for face to face interaction with people from your city or town. Those are all great vehicles to get you going or help with networking but they don’t magically waive our need to be with people.
So get out from behind the screen and figure out how to get involved in something you love with people you can see yourself hanging out with.
My hope is that throughout the course of reading these posts, you will find a hobby and a community. Remember Abraham Maslow and where his idea of community falls in the hierarchy. If you can’t master community, you wont be able to move up the hierarchy.
Have fun and keep your eyes open!
*Frogs will jump out of boiling water but you can put them in cool water and bring it to a boil – for the record, frogs are awesome and I have no idea where I learned this!
Honest Iron 