Last Thursday one of my friends mentioned that we had been friends for 34 years. My best friend and I have been friends for 45 years. These are long term relationships. I was up early Saturday, and these long relationships struck me as unique. Maybe I have a need for deep long lasting human connections? What if these long friendships can be summed up in simply my aversion for change? That can’t be it because I changed fundamental relationships that are ultimately detrimental to me. Can these steady friendships survive events? Yes, they all have moved in dynamic harmony through birthdays, life events, marriages, divorce and death. I truly believe that these lifelong connections for me come from an important need for me to develop a full understanding of someone else. A confidant to share my new discoveries I find on my journey with someone on their journey. We become pathfinders marking trees for those coming behind us. Changing quickly does not allow for the person to dig deep for treasure but to skip off the surface establishing acquaintance not friendship. If you have been friends with someone for over 40 years, there is a shared foundational history that brings you toward one another.
If I was asked what one characteristic establishes long term friendships, I don’t think it is the obvious ones such as trust, honesty, commitment or dedication. The biggest key to long term friendships is that with the person you are agenda-less. Each conversation has to be end to end with you present without the typical agenda driven “point” you are trying to get at. When you talk to a long-term friend you listen with a completely different point of view. In a business meeting or a marketing meeting you are engaged with a point trying to be achieved. You listen with an intent to get somewhere or use the information for an achievement. With a long-term friend, you are not gathering data or structuring an argument to achieve something. You are listening with the sole purpose of helping the other person achieve something in their life. You are a simply a wall to be bounced off of so that the friend can see, illuminate or understand something in their life. You absorb or reflect as necessary the information in order to frame or assist the friend see something that that has not been seen before. You are irrelevant not insignificant, but your role is to assist them not earn points with them. In good friendships this wall becomes reciprocal and intense the longer you are friends. Each tree gets marked to avoid backtracking constant perpetual forward motion. All of my successes have been a culmination of “boardroom” meetings with my friends. Imagine never making a big decision without “bouncing” the idea off a friend.
That has been my life a unique series of board meetings with my friends. You come to each meeting with an agenda-less intention eagerly awaiting the next challenge excited to see what life has next. You do that long enough and you get to celebrate 45 and 34 years of friendship.
Albert R. Hartley
Currently Reading:
American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road
By: Nick Bilton
Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt
By: David McCullough
The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (The Revolution Trilogy, 1)
By: Rick Atkinson
Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times
By: H. W. Brands
Notes to John
By: Joan Didion
Mark Twain
By: Ron Chernow