by Tim Gray

Created on: October 31, 2008

Friends are an invaluable and treasured part of the human condition, that we far too often take for granted. The roles they play in our lives cannot be overstated. Moreover, homo sapiens are gregarious by nature and establishing friendships is an imperative component of gregarious behavior.

Friends make us laugh, help us enjoy human experiences and bring us solace and comfort in time of need. Friends can be faithfully dependable, during those times in life when it appears there is no one that can be counted upon. Friends are priceless in a world where it often seems virtually everything has a cost attached to it. However, are they intended to last a lifetime?

Friendship is time consuming. We find ourselves so caught up in the day to day responsibilities of meeting our wants and needs, that friends are often neglected in the process. How very unfortunate. Distance can jeopardize friendships. People often relocate far from some of their best friends and the lack of getting to personally visit with them can cause the friendships to wither and die. Telecommunication is available, but there is expense involved and it just isn't the same as two people interacting person to person.

People's lives become so cluttered with earthly pursuits and matters that it can seem as if there's no time for the work that all friendships require. Once again, this is a melancholy scenario. At the end of life's road our earthly trappings remain behind. All we have in the final analysis are our life experiences and friends are such a special part of what we find of true value in the end.

Lifelong friendships are dependent upon our recognizing the value of their importance and giving them the time and nurturing they require. Like anything so richly necessary, lifelong friendships can require some effort. Yet, what they offer in return far outweigh whatever investment of a time related or tangible nature we might need to put into them, as the years roll along.

Friendships can be for a lifetime, but only if the friends place the relationships high among their lists of priorities. Time must be made to stay in contact. E-mailing has made retaining friendships convenient and affordable. Perhaps, some travel, and the expense one incurs, might be involved occasionally. Like anything else of immeasurable worth in our lives lifelong friendships require effort. Those willing to make the effort will bear the fruits of one of life's most rewarding experiences. Those unwilling to make the effort will one day look back on a road littered with fragmented and broken friendships, that were more matters of convenience than the sincere and heart warming experiences they were meant to be.

Is friendship for a lifetime? There is no dichotomous answer. Lifelong friendships depend upon a certain measure of character that two people must bring to the relationship. At their cores, lifelong friendships are value based. Those with the correct set of friendship based values will have many of the same friends all their lives. Others, busy with their earthly matters, will always remain marginally, if at all connected to people they discover through friendship. I suspect they might harbor some disappointment in themselves as the clocks of their lives dwindle down to the precious few seconds we all must face eventually.

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