Gathering Contacts and Friends, Investing in connections with people

I collect people, or at least contacts and connections.  You never know when you will have something of interest for someone else.  I used to worry that I was using them, at least I did when I finally became a bit more mature.  You can’t ask your friends to do things for you all the time.  In fact, you should rarely ask them to do something for you.  That isn’t what they are for.  They are your friends, you have things in common that help you connect.  Your connection brings each other joy, when you constantly ask for things, it strains the joy or removes it.  It will end your friendship.

I have a friend in Tacoma that has a business.  I am going to have a daughter in law who will need a job in Tacoma.  I called my friend to see if she was hiring.  I didn’t ask her to hire my future daughter in law, but my friend said she would give her a try.  If it doesn’t work, no hard feelings.  I’m not going to get involved and if my friend has to fire her; I don’t want to know why.  It is her business, not mine and while she is doing me a favor; her business must be the priority, not our friendship. It really shocked me that I could call a friend where my son lived and find a contact that may or may not hire his fiancé.  Turns out that my friend needs competent people and if my future daughter works out, my friend will be helped out.  She won’t owe me anything, it isn’t that kind of a situation.  If she owed me anything, it would then put a strain on our friendship.

But think about this; I called someone I know, in another state, to see about getting a future family member a job.  Wow!  Contacts, connections, friendships….. that is what 50 years of living as the best version of you can bring you.  People you can reach out to.  My future daughter is going to reach out to her today and I will then leave it to those two to work out.  I am out of it.  I won’t ask how she is working out if she does go to work with my friend.  It isn’t about me and if I get involved, I will be taking ownership of a situation that I don’t need to be involved in.

Be honorable in how you treat and deal with your friends, good boundaries make good and lasting relationships.  This friend, also collects my art.  Much more important to me than how her and my daughter work out.  My daughter to be,  is an adult and she will (hopefully) be honorable to my friend.  If she isn’t, she will need to deal with the fallout.  I won’t be getting involved.