Hard to find, Lucky to have

A couple of my good friends are having birthdays, and I started thinking about friendship and how lucky I am to have amazing friends both back home, and here in Hawaii. Friendships can be really tricky sometimes so I'm going to talk about some things I've learned are essential to a healthy friendship, and random things I think can help a friendship progress smoothly. 

• One of the most important things I've learned is that in order to have a friend, you need to be a friend. If you go into a friendship only wanting to gain rather than giving, it can lead to a lot of problems. It's important to focus on giving and being a good friend, and if the other party has good intentions, then they will reciprocate that. I'm sure we've all been on the other end  of things; we've all probably encountered people who only take from us and it makes us feel really hurt and annoyed. If you have friends that only take from you, you should really evaluate that friendship and make sure their intentions are genuine. You can learn so much by putting yourself in someone else's boat or remembering how you felt during a time where you might have been in their same position. 

• Being a listener and a critic: Knowing when to be a listener and when to be a critic can be very difficult. Have you ever had a friend who rambles on giving you advice or always chiming in when what you really want them to do it just listen? It can be a really bad feeling because sometimes we just need someone to sit there and listen. However, just sitting there and saying, "yep", "uh-huh", or my absolute least favorite, "that sucks." Try to be an active listener by maintaining eye contact, through facial expressions, and occasionally asking questions. It might sound weird, but by being an active listener, the other person will really know you care. When a friend is asking for your advice or opinion, then you can chime in and give your two cents. When you do, make sure you're really being honest. Don't sugar coat things, but make sure you are still being kind and considerate. 

• Trust: Definitely the most important things in any relationship. Being trustworthy is one of the best traits a person can have. Friends should have a mutual trust and should be there to believe in and support each other. There are so many ways to develop trust: being kind, being nonjudgmental, and sharing with your friends. By sharing with them and showing that you trust in them, friends are more likely to trust you in return. 

Confession time.

Do little mishaps happen in your life and as they add up you just slowly feel like you're going to lose it? I think this happens even to the best of us, and it is not fun at all. We are all a little guilty of getting way too angry or irritated by such small things, and after a little reflection on the topic of patience I'm just going to take a moments and say, Mom, Dad, you were right! I most definitely need an attitude adjustment. And actually, I think a lot of us do. I'm not posting about this because I think everyone is sad, horrible, and cruel, I'm posting about it because I genuinely believe that making even the smallest changes in your mindset can really help you have a more cheerful countenance. One little inconvenience happened last night and it had to do with my car. One of my pet peeves is definitely car trouble. In high school I drove an older car and I drive an older car now as well, and it can be very frustrating when it randomly dies on you and decides to stop working. Anyhow, after this happened (and I was with some friends at the time), I kept saying how annoyed I was, how frustrated I was, and was just kind of being a brat. I'm not sure if my friends even cared or were bothered at all, but after trying to sleep and laying in my bed for a while, I just couldn't shake this ugly feeling. The word patience just kept entering my mind, so I decided to read about it in my scriptures (the Bible, specifically) and to just learn a little more about it in general. I looked up the definition and it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but the synonyms I found really helped me reflect more on where I was at fault. So enjoy my rant I'm just going to spill the beans real quick. Something I've noticed from people's behavior, especially on social media, is that we like to act super tough. We sometimes express our anger a lot more than we should, and I can't give you a reason so I'm sorry about that. I don't know if we feel more bold or courageous expressing our anger and the things that push our buttons, but I've found that doing so actually creates the opposite effect. One of the synonyms of patience is self-posession which I think is so important. A lot of times we try to blame other people or make up reasons why something happened to justify our angry behavior, but by doing so we actually completely lose control over ourselves. Life pushes our buttons but we don't always have to react! I remember in my psychology class we learned about pain, and how we can train our minds to be able to ignore a certain amount of pain. I took this lesson to heart, and whenever I would stub my toe or scrape myself I would just say in my mind, "I'm fine, that didn't hurt, mind over matter." Just over and over. Surprisingly it actually did work most of the time! What I'm trying to get at is that, with practice, we can also train ourselves not to react in anger to certain situations, just how we can train our minds not to react to certain amounts of pain. It can be a really long process to acquire patience, but it will be time invested to save us a whole lot of regret that comes from acting out of anger. I saw this really awesome story on Pinterest (a.k.a. the greatest website in the world) and it says: 

An old Cherokee told his grandson, "My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth. " The boy thought about it and asked, "Grandfather, which wolf wins?" The old man quietly replied, "The one you feed."

I hope you enjoyed this late night rant. I challenge you guys to try to make tiny little adjustments because they'll eventually lead to big accomplishments! Good luck. Also, thanks so much for all of your feedback. Whether you agree, disagree, want to provide criticism, or have a question for me, PLEASE comment or contact me because I love hearing your thoughts. 'Til next time.