Tag Archives: friendship

Defining and Understanding Community

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I call it the most important book I never read. It’s called “Bowling Alone”. I asked Microsoft Copilot to synthesize the message of the book for me:

“The main message of “Bowling Alone” by Robert D. Putnam is that social capital in the United States has been declining since the 1960s. Putnam argues that this erosion of community engagement and participation in civic life has led to a weaker democracy and a decline in personal well-being. He emphasizes the importance of revitalizing social networks and community bonds to strengthen society.”

I say that I didn’t read it, but I tried. It was suggested for a book club I was in 20+ years ago and while the premise is why I call it the most important book I never read, the actual text was very much like a textbook and way too boring. None of us finished it, but we had very interesting conversations about it and I’ve thought about a lot in subsequent years.

I think the message about lost community is more relevant today than 20 years ago. I have lived in the same house for over 25 years. I know my neighbours on either side of me well, but vaguely know the rest of my neighbours beyond that. I don’t live in a community as much as we cohabitate in a common local area.

Community should describe our neighbourly connections not our geographical location. Close community bonds strengthen a society. I think about this as I think about retirement. At some point my wife and I will downsize our home. Where do we move to? To me geography matters less than community. The more specific question to ask is, where do we move to in order to maximize our connections to our friends and community?

The difference between living 15-20 minutes away from a friend versus 45-60 minutes away is the difference between seeing them regularly versus making monthly plans. It’s the difference between living in a community and commuting to occasionally visit and see each other.

In the future I want to create the community that I want, in close proximity to me. I want to cohabitate with my social community, not travel from a place where I cohabitate with strangers to get to my community of friends.

4 years of crunches

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Today my buddy Dave and I did our 160th Coquitlam Crunch together. It started during covid, January 2021. We had just come off of Christmas break where we had to isolate with our family/inner circle, and so we had spent 2 weeks not connecting much, if at all, with anyone outside of our household. Dave and I were both feeling really disconnected and so on the first or second Friday back at school (neither of us remember exactly), we decided to do the Crunch. This was an acceptable thing to do because it was an outside activity.

Ignoring the fact that it got dark early and that it was cold and wet, we set off to climb this steep, 250m high, powerline trail. It was so wonderful to connect face-to-face with a friend that we decided to do it again the following week.

And here we are, 4 years later, averaging exactly 40 crunches a year… and we have plans not only to keep going, but to do something pretty challenging on this trail in the future. More on that later.

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Posts about Dave and I on the crunch here.

F2F

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I just had an hour long conversation with a friend. Now I’m going to drive almost an hour to go work out with him and hang out for a bit before my hour drive home. The phone conversation was great, but it doesn’t replace the opportunity to share time face-to-face.

Tomorrow I’ll meet another friend for our weekly walk and coffee. Those times together have evolved a great friendship into a brotherhood that we would not feel without making the effort to connect so frequently.

I love technology. I had a great conversation today on the phone. I had another great conversation earlier today on Zoom with my uncle. He lives over 4,000 kilometres away and a face-to-face is not possible, so a digital connection is necessary. Zoom lets us still see and be with each other when we can’t physically be together.

I prefer physically being together, but whether physical or digital the idea of connecting F2F with people you care about is not just nice, but actually food for the soul. It’s a chance to fundamentally connect in a way that feeds your wellbeing and enriches your life.

Who do you want to, need to connect with F2F? What’s stopping you from doing so (now)?

Phone a friend

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Probably my favourite moment on any tv game show is John Carpenter on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ He received the final, million dollar question and had his 3 support lifelines still available to be used. He hears the question and says he wants to use his ‘Phone a friend’ lifeline, and so a call goes through to his dad. Once his dad was on the line John tells him, ‘I don’t need your help, I just wanted you to know that I’m going to win the million dollars.’ He then gave his final answer… and won.

Not directly related but on a similar topic, a favourite movie scene of mine is from the movie, The Town. Ben Affleck’s character, Doug, walks into a room with Jeremy Renner’s character, James, and says, “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we’re gonna hurt some people.” After a quick pause Jeremy responds, “Whose car we gonna take?”

If you needed help, not just a skill testing question but real help for a challenging situation, who would you call?

As I reflect on the year that has passed, I have a great appreciation for the connection I’ve made to my good friend, Dave. In January of 2021, with Covid restrictions in full effect, we had just come off of our winter break where we were mostly isolated and home bound. We decided we would do a walk called the Coquitlam Crunch, because it was an outdoor thing that we could do and actually see each other, and still maintain a respectful distance from each other.

This morning, we witnessed a beautiful sunrise over Mount Baker as we did our 158th Coquitlam Crunch since that first one back in January ’21. These crunch walks represent 158 opportunities, basically 40 times a year for the past 4 years, where we’ve had a chance to connect face-to-face. These would not have been a chance to spend time together if it wasn’t for our planned walk. We went from not seeing each other regularly to our visits becoming a committed routine.

(A beautiful sunrise on our walk this morning.)

In 4 years we have only skipped out on one walk after driving there on a cold, wet, miserable, sleet-blowing-sideways day. Just once despite many other miserable and even snowy days. These walks have been medicine for the soul. They have been ‘phone a friend’ kind of support, except with the joy of being in person.

So, to end the year, I’d just like to thank Dave for the opportunity to connect so often. It has been an enriching experience to have so much time together with a friend. It reminds me of how valuable friendship is, to have scheduled companionship, and to have someone that I need not have any filters or pretence to talk to.

These walks have been ‘phone a friend’ moments that have enriched my life… and I get to have them almost once a week.

If I could give anyone advice for the new year, if anyone is looking for a resolution, my advice would be to routinize connecting with friends. Do you want to build a relationship where you can phone a friend up and ask for anything at all? Well that kind of bond is created by spending time together. In this day and and age, if you don’t schedule time with people, you just won’t see them enough.

PS. Hey Dave, need my help? Just one question, “Whose car we gonna take?”😜

‘Le-we-go-lime’

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A few days ago I wrote, ‘Create Experiences’ and said,

As time passes, and I’m looking ahead at retirement, I think about the time I have left with family and friends. I wonder how do I create experiences rather than just reminiscing? When we meet up, are we doing something together or are we reflecting and sharing stories of the past?

On Facebook Al Lauzon commented,

I don’t think you are wrong but we need to recognize that developmentally we revisit our past and tell stories as we are engaged in making sense of our life as we age. Even in the elderly the repeating of the same stories of the past is making sense of our life. We have tendency to attribute the repeating of the story to forgetfulness but that is not necessarily the case. It is our attempt to make sense of our life. We should also note that we are not always conscious of what we are doing when we are engaged in this developmental process. According to the psychologist Erikson successful development during this stage of life leads to integrity and peace. Failure to make this developmental transformation leads to despair. Revisiting our life is important just as engaging new experiences is important.

And I responded,

Al Lauzon well said. I completely agree. My thoughts while writing the post related to my friends at a distance that I don’t see often. I think it’s easy to get caught up in the mode of ‘catching up’ and reminiscing, without planning new experiences.
It’s wonderful to look back at old times fondly and conversations can fill with laughter and happy thoughts as old times are re-lived. You are so correct about the value here… but when you don’t see someone often and that’s all you do, then you are missing out on creating new memories to hold on to at a different, future date.

Then today I saw a clip of a podcast I heard not too long ago. It is of Trevor Noah talking to Steven Bartlett on Dairy of a CEO. The title on the clip is ‘The importance of Liming (Caribbean style)’. The clip describes hanging out with friends, with no agenda, just to be together.

It reminded me of a Bajan saying growing up, ‘Le-we-go-lime’, an accented, Bajan way to say, ‘Let us go hang out together’. Unlike a set plan, that statement could be said even before a destination is chosen. It’s not an invitation out, it’s an invitation in… in to a circle of friends that are just getting together to be together.

Al’s comment and Trevor’s video clip are reminders to me that although it’s important to create new experiences, it’s also important to find time just to be together with friends, and with good friends you don’t need to have an agenda, an activity, or even a plan beyond just being together.

Case in point, I haven’t seen Al in over 30 years, and if I had a chance to see him face to face, I really wouldn’t want to be doing an activity beyond sipping a coffee or a beer when we got together. I’d want nothing more than some good time to lime.

It was special

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The reason we gathered wasn’t a happy one, but we took the opportunity to gather.

I became a teacher in 1998, and I joined a staff where 14 of 28 of us were brand new with another 2 teachers that had less than a year’s experience. It was Como Lake Middle School, and over the next 9 years I worked with an absolutely incredible staff.

We learned so much together. We had so much fun. When I speak to former students from that era they all share one or more of these quotes:

“We could tell that you liked being teachers.”

“We could tell you were all friends, liked each other, and liked coming to school.”

“We could tell you liked us and cared about us.”

“You guys made middle school fun.”

I thought I’d try high school or another school after 5 years, and I stayed for 4 more because it was too hard to let go of such a fantastic community. These people helped sculpt me as an educator and a leader.

Connecting with them yesterday reminded me of what an amazing group of people I ‘grew up with’ as an educator.

I feel blessed to know these people.

Breaking bread

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I’ve had a few opportunities to have lunch with, to break bread with, colleagues in the past several weeks. Having a meal together, outside of the usual staffroom with its comfortable banter is a treat. It is a good reminder of the fact that we all have lives outside of this thing called work.

I find that my connections to people can become fixed in a place-based kind of experience, and we all play the roles we are supposed to play… to leave that environment and break bread is an opportunity to find new connections, to be ourselves and not just our roles.

Friendtegrity

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Just to be clear, friendtegrity isn’t a word. I just smashed friend and integrity together. That said, it is likely you read the word and knew what I was going to talk about.

I’m listening to Trevor Noah on Steven Bartlett’s podcast, Diary of a CEO. In it they are discussing friendship and Steven asks Trevor, “How do you define a bad friend?… How do you spot one?”

Trevor says, “I don’t think you spot them, I think you feel it… And I think it’s a lot easier for us to spot than you think it is. One of the easiest ones is, can you be yourself? You know, sometimes they’re not a bad friend, they’re a bad friend for you, because you are not revealing yourself to them. And so they are being friends with the idea of you but they are not being friends with you. And then you leave thinking, I don’t feel good. But they don’t even know you, so you can’t blame them for being a bad friend.”

Trevor goes on to say, “I almost think there is no such thing as a bad friend, you are just in a bad friendship… because they could be a good friend to somebody else… this is just a bad friendship for you.”

When I think of my connections to good friends, I see that my own integrity is intact. I feel comfortable enough around them that I am revealing my true self. I am comfortable with them, we can have pauses without having to fill the silence. I can be vulnerable. I can tease and joke without there being concern for harm or defensiveness, and in fact laugh at myself when the teasing is directed at me.

It’s a lot different with a bad friend, a friend with whom I feel I can’t be my true self when I’m with them. That is a friendship that doesn’t have integrity, it doesn’t let me reveal myself and so the bond is only a surface level bond. The chemistry of good friendship goes beyond that.

When you have friendtegrity, that’s really special. You can spend hours together, because you don’t have to fill the time. And equally, you can spend months or even years apart and when you meet again it’s like the time gap disappears. That’s the power of a good friendship. When you have it, you can feel it. And if it’s truly authentic, the feeling isn’t just yours, you and your friend feel it, because you are both revealing your true selves to each other.

Do it anyway

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I love this video I found on LinkedIn, shared by Soren Harrison.

“Discipline doesn’t care if you are tired. ‘You’re tired?’

Do it anyway. Right?

Discipline says ‘Oh you don’t feel good.’

Well do it anyway.

Discipline says ‘It’s raining outside and it’s cold. It’s windy.’

Do it anyway.”

It was miserable out today… an ‘atmospheric river’. There is flooding all over the Vancouver Mainland. My buddy Dave and I did our walk anyway. Our 149th Coquitlam Crunch since January 2021.

Excuses are easy. Discipline is doing it anyway… no matter what gets in the way.

Giving Thanks

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It was a different kind of Thanksgiving this year, the first one where both of our daughters were not with us. We went to my sister and brother in-laws, who were also without kids, and we had paella. It was delicious, I can honestly say that I didn’t miss having turkey.

I want to take a moment and be thankful. Thankful for family and friends. Thankful for good health. Thankful to be living in a prosperous country by global standards, and thankful that it is a democracy. Thankful to live in a beautiful country that is very green and very clean. Thankful for a great job where I can contribute my services to a meaningful cause for a good wage. Thankful for access to delicious food any time that I’m hungry.

It’s when we don’t have these things that we miss them most. The fact that I do have them should not go without appreciation and thanks. I have much gratitude for the life I live, and the people I get to spend it with. 🙏