There are almost 8 billion people in the world.

That’s 8 billion possibilities for human connection. 8 billion people who could hold your hand when you are sick. 8 billion people who might laugh at the same weird things that you laugh at.

But most of them won’t. And that’s ok.

Find your people.

Over the course of your life, you can count yourself blessed if you can find a handful of people that you can crack yourself open in front of and they won’t even flinch.

You can tell them the awful thing you thought, the crazy thing you bought, or the dreams that you sought…and they won’t judge you at all.

These types of friends are rarer than white peacocks and exponentially more precious. When you find one…never let it go.

Gather up your bad date stories, your big juicy life goals, and your most painful parenting fails and find someone who will listen to it all, laugh at it all and cheer you on through it all.

The number of “your people” will probably be small. Rather than having a yearbook filled with dozens of people saying, “Have a nice summer. I hope we have more classes together next year, ” you may have just a few people write paragraphs of memories and inside jokes on the front and back pages.

Quality over quantity. Friends over followers.

These are your people. Find your people.

Photo by Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

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But we make mistakes, it normally comes from a place of “Uh-Oh” “Oh-No” or “I can’t believe I did that…I’m so sorry!”

That’s a pretty big discrepancy. We tend to assume the best in ourselves and the worst in others.

She’s late for the movie because she’s inconsiderate. I’m late for the movie because I fell asleep on the couch on accident.

When someone cuts me off in traffic it’s because they don’t know how to drive. When I cut someone off in traffic it’s because they were in my blind spot.

Please don’t be quick to judge. It’s ugly behavior and it puts you at the center of the universe. You aren’t the sun…you are one of many planets circling around the sun trying to get through the day without banging into any space junk.

And so is everyone else.

I believe that people are generally kind and generally good. I believe that with all of my heart. It’s very easy to watch the news and feel like the entire world is filled with horrible people.

It’s just not true. The news doesn’t send a crew to Target when someone hits a car with their cart and they leave a note because they feel bad. They don’t report on the person who chatted with a lonely stranger on the bus. But these things happen all the time…every day…all over the world.

Try to have compassion towards people and realize that they are doing the best they can. Maybe they are rude because they just left the hospital where their father underwent heart surgery. You don’t know.

Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Be kind. Be compassionate. Be patient. Be humble.

People deserve that….even the grumpy ones. (tweet this)

Image by Hina Ichigo

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I believe this to be true.

As a kid, you make friends and you grow up with them. You have similar life experiences. You swim at the same pool. You have the same teachers. You build up years of shared experiences. You become BFF’s.

Best.

Friends.

Forever.

But don’t hang too tightly on that last part. Not all friendships last forever…and that’s ok.

Childhood friendships are fantastic. You learn life together. You grow up together. You share secrets and make plans.

But then, you grow up.

You develop your own values and interests. You realize that you like to read books, but your best friend likes to go to concerts. You want to put down roots in your hometown, but your best friend wants to experience the world.

You grow apart.

There are arguments for keeping the friendship going. It’s great to have a lifelong friendship with someone who grew where you grew, but if you grow apart…don’t beat yourself up over it.

The qualities that someone looks for in a friend at age 7 are very different than what they look for in a friend when they are 37.

The girl who you went swimming with at the pool may not be the best person to comfort you when you lose your job. The girl who liked to go on adventures in the forest may not understand why you work late after work because you are launching your own business.

And that’s ok.

Appreciate every person that enters your life…whether it is for 5 minutes, for your entire childhood, or for your entire life. (tweet this)

Say hello when you want to. Say goodbye when you need to.

And be ok with it.

Image by Philippe Put

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