Choose your community carefully. Not everyone you love will stay, and not everyone you trust will remain trustworthy. They will either stunt your growth or spur you on towards love and good deeds. (Eph. 4:29). Different people have different capacities for friendship and various friendships have different limitations – and that’s okay.
The Ebb and Flow
Friends move on and journey in different directions. That’s why it’s so important not to define your friend’s behavior as an act of abandonment but just part of a natural pattern. Good friends are part of our support structure. The best friendships evolve over time and pick up where they left off. The depth of a friendship can’t be judged by proximity, the regularity of your communication or occasional disappointments, but by your compatibility, connection and the generosity with which you accept each other’s foibles.
Friendships Mature, or Do Not, as We Do
Inseparability may be a defining feature of friendship in youth, but in adulthood being bonded takes on much more onerous connections. As we mature so too should our friendships. Experiences become more subjective, fate takes us on different paths, and geographical distance and pesky partners have to be negotiated, too. Navigating that changing terrain means learning to celebrate the ebb and flow of experience, enjoying the periods when your paths converge and learning to stay afloat independently when you drift apart.
Giving Room to Grow
Meeting a partner, having children, changing job, moving location are the likeliest occurrences in an ever-changing world. Giving those you love the necessary room to achieve their potential while maintaining a connection are skills we need to become adept at as we mature. Close-knit pals will inevitably disentangle and find other attachments along the way, but nicely nurtured they’ll remain at arm’s reach, there to reconnect when the time is right and the tides more favourable.
The Hidden Treasure
If you happen to find a forever friend or two, hold on to them. They are like a hidden treasure, only very few find. Choose people who will say your name in a room full of opportunities… and do the same for others. Surround yourself with individuals who genuinely believe in you, see your potential, and are willing to advocate for your success, even when you are not present. Building supportive relationships can be instrumental in increasing visibility, recognition, and likelihood of being considered for career advancement. Success is a collaborative effort.
Trust
Trust is: choosing to make something important to you, vulnerable to the actions of someone else. Distrust is: what I have shared with you that is important to me, is not safe with you. — Brené Brown. Trust is BRAVING.
The Algorithm: Networking
In computer science, networking is about managing connections—handling congestion, prioritizing data, and optimizing flow so the system doesn’t collapse under its own weight. Friendships work the same way. You can’t maintain every connection at full bandwidth all the time. Some friendships need high-priority packets—regular check-ins, deep conversations, presence during crises. Others run beautifully on low-bandwidth: a text every few months, a reunion that picks up exactly where you left off. The art of friendship, like networking, is knowing which connections need what kind of attention—and not confusing low traffic with low value.
Stick these on your mirror
Your friends will give shape to your life.
The depth of a friendship can’t be judged by proximity.
If you find a forever friend, hold on to them. They are like a hidden treasure.