THANK GOODNESS IT’S MONDAY #286 How do you define friends?

TGIM #286

YOU GOTTA HAVE FRIENDS, MY FRIENDS

Has the idea of friends changed dramatically in the great social media frenzy currently underway?

Of course it has. Here’s a quick roundup of some classic “friend” definitions:

• Person you know well and regard with affection and trust. "He’s been my best friend since grammar school."
• Ally: An associate who provides cooperation or assistance. "She's a good ally to have on your side when things get rough."
• Acquaintance:  A person with whom you are familiar. "At my age I have trouble remembering the names of all my acquaintances.”
• Supporter: A person who backs a politician or a team etc. "All the Giants’ supporters are very disappointed this year.”
• A member of the Religious Society of Friends founded by George Fox. (They never called themselves Quakers)

But do any/all your digital “friends” measure up to these parameters?

If you subscribe, as I do, to the business-wise concept that “It’s not so much who you know, but who knows you!” the imperative to “friend” folks in the available social media channels is of the essence.

Never before have we had such an accessible, minimal-cost conduit to share our thinking on virtually any topic with, well, just about the Whole Wide World. (Isn’t that what www.whatever stands for?).

And there are plenty of good reasons to do that; reasons that approach the kind of involvement we’d seek with the more limited circle of people we’d call friends in the pre-digitally-connected age.

That’s what these blog posts and TGIMs are about. I mean to share what I consider worthwhile thinking with friendly folks who find it worthwhile or who are willing to consider it and, if they disagree or have another view, are willing to air it out in a civil and objective way.

But we can’t all do that, can we? Can you be a friend to the whole world? Can 6,891,835,670+ human beings worldwide be “friends” with each other?

It’s doubtful. But –

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the opportunity or make the effort.

Since Facebook alone connects 500 million of those nearly 7 billion folks out there (making it the equivalent of the third biggest country), as the lyrics, made popular by Bette Midler and Shrek declare, “You gotta have friends,” that’s for sure.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Set standards for your “friending.”  Seek to include those who would be part of your circle and whose circle you wish to be part of. Don’t exclude out of hand those who don’t currently qualify as friends by the classic definitions.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Apply some guidance that’s proven itself over the ages. An 11^th Century Persian prince named Kai Ka’us ibn Iskandar wrote a guidebook called A Mirror for Princes to instruct his young son in deportment.

Here, in a selection from a translation by scholar Reuben Levy, he advises his son in the art of making and keeping friends:

He who never spares a thought for friends never has them. Form the habit, therefore, of making friends with all manner of persons; many of man’s faults are hidden from his friends, although his virtues are revealed to them.

When you find new friends, never turn back on old ones and so you will always possess a host of them; and there is a saying that a good friend is a rich treasure.

Give a thought also to the people who are advancing with you but are only quasi-friends, to whom you should make yourself well-disposed and affable, agreeing with them in all matters good and bad and showing yourself to be favorably inclined towards them. In that manner, experiencing nothing but civility from you, they become wholeheartedly your friends.

When Alexander (the Great) was asked by virtue of what it was that he had been able to acquire so great an empire in so short a space of time, he replied, “By winning over enemies by kindliness and gathering friends about me by solicitude for them.”

TGIM Takeaway: Ralph Waldo Emerson summed it up nicely: “The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be a friend.” And his friend Henry David Thoreau echoed the sentiment: “The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.”

If in 1837 or thereabouts there had been a high speed connection between Walden Pond and downtown Concord, I guess they would have “friended up” in a 21^st Century way as well. Imagine what that exchange would have been like.

You can friend me up anytime, my friend.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing
8 Depot Square
Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com   

GEOFF STECK leads Alexander Publishing & Marketing, a company he formed in 1986. The core AP&M mission: To create and publish leadership, sales mastery, self-improvement and workplace skill-building resources and tools. The focus: Areas such as business communication, staff support, customer care and frontline management. Geoff also puts his corporate and entrepreneurial experience, independent perspective, and skills as a catalyst to work for other firms (ranging from multinational corporations to more modest operations), not-for-profits, and individuals who have conceived or developed programs or initiatives but are frustrated in getting them implemented.