Are You Happy With Yourself (for Friendships)?

There were two good comments on yesterdays post which I really enjoyed. The first was really from Sheri whose blog I quite enjoyed reading and now subscribed to the ATOM/RSS feed (quick warning though for those who may be offended, she does swear sometimes). She has some very interesting discussions about family and her experience with parenthood.

Another comment came from my great friend Cindy. She mentioned a good point which I didn't really focus on yesterday. I really talked about needing to be happy with yourself before you enter into a dating relationship. She made it pretty clear this applies to friendships as well.

I do think that a friendship can make you happier, help you grow and get you past some unhappiness you feel about yourself. At the same time, if you haven't figured out what makes you happy on your own, those friends may not really enjoy your company. While people who are confident and happy with themselves will often have stronger and more comforting friendships.

I mean, how often do you want to hang out with someone who always complains about things, how everything in their life goes wrong and how they have no idea what they want to do to have fun or make their life better (blaming others is one way people focus on their life being bad)?

My point (well, the point I stole from Cindy) is that we can have some good friendships even if we aren't happy with ourselves. Imagine how great those friendships would be if we really knew what we wanted and were happy with ourselves? Cindy mentioned that she had friends and did stuff she really didn't good about because she "needed" the friendship. Once she broke from that and figured out who she was in her own right, her friendships became something amazing.

The other thing Cindy mentioned which I really, really liked was a way to figure out how to like yourself. Of course from me you'd expect prayer to be in there, and it certainly is. I mean, a quick check-in with God asking "Who do you want me to be today? Am I really making sure I'm happy with myself?" is always good.

But another one is to really spend some time alone. We seem to have this weird mentality that it's impossible to spend time on your own, that having someone with you is always better than being alone. But why?

During our marriage counseling Rob gave us a lot of good advice. One was that no matter who you are, you need to find a way to tell your spouse that you need some alone time. For me that often means holing up in the office for an hour or so playing a game or editing photos without being interrupted. Or it means we get home and Erin does one thing while I do another.

Regardless we need to spend some time alone, walking, writing, reading, going to movies, biking, whatevering. Heck we may even meet someone else out on our trip who shares our interests and spark up a new friendship.

Are you really allowing yourself to have some alone time? Are you happy with that?

Peace.

posted by Tom at 2:56 PM