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I've been thinking lately about my old friend Hope, a onetime soulmate who I spent a lot of time with when I first moved to New York. She was kind and hilarious and would send me annotated articles from celebrity magazines and I would laugh my head off. In my mind, everything Hope did was smart and interesting, and she made me feel smarter and more interesting just to know her. Hope now lives in New Jersey with her husband and three kids and I live in New York with my husband and three kids. We have all but lost touch except for the occasional Christmas card, and this both saddens and perplexes me. Saddens because our friendship made all the lights in my small corner of the world shine a little brighter, and perplexes because I wonder if there was something I could have done to work harder to keep our friendship going. Which brings me to the pie chart of my life. Another friend, Silvia, introduced me to the idea of making a pie chart of my life and seeing how I would divide everything up. Right now the pie chart looks something like this: Husband/kids/house/the domestic sphere: 50% Yes, you'll see that friends only take up 1% of my pie chart, which explains quite a few things about my current life. Will that change once my kids are grown? Probably. Should I exercise less and give that 3% to friendships? But who would want to see me at 6 am? Anyway, two things: one, I would recommend Silvia's pie chart exercise to anyone--very enlightening. Two, is it possible to have friends at 1% and not be a sociopath?
Posted by: Rachel| May 01, 2008 at 11:01 AM This pie chart exercise is a great idea. Since I'm always wondering "where the time goes," I'm going to be more specific and track my hours for the next week and what I spend them on, then create the chart from that. That is, if I remember to track the hours... I'm totally going to do the pie chart...I'm sure I will be saddened at it too. I dunno, I think people are sooo busy with their families these days with SPORTS, church, etc....it's just hard to squeeze in time with our own family much less friends. Unless, like Rachel said, combine friendships with exercise, etc... I have my very best friend, whom we have known each other since birth! I don't talk to her every day, heck, maybe not even once a week, but we just know that if either one of us needed ONE thing, we'd drop our worlds for each other. She only lives one hour away from me, but we still rarely find time for each other amidst our busy lives. Sad but true. I think you should call Hope up and have a Bar-B-Q with your families! Maybe she's missin' you as much as you are her! Gotta run, I'm being beckoned to run through the sprinkler....how can I say no to that!? I think that our own life pie charts change as our lives fluctuate with marriage, family, children, jobs, etc. and that is inevitable...that is life. I guess it's just a matter of deciding if the way you split your life up is really in line with your goals and what you hope your life to be. Definitely a good reality check once in a while. As far as friends go, my sister once told me something that always sticks with me. She said that she believed that we have certain friends for certain times in our lives. That can be a lifetime friendship, but sometimes it's just a small period of time when you find someone who you can closely relate with. You may grow apart, but you should never feel guilty about allowing the friendship to change, even though that might mean you never talk anymore. Recently I ran into someone who I was best friends with in grade 9, over 18 years ago. We had never really kept in touch after we went into grade 10 and different schools. We both have children similar ages and have a lot in common again as far as career and lifestyle. It seems like we've picked up right where we left off, which was surprising. Life is full of surprises...so sometimes it is difficult to simplify it down into a pie chart. Interesting- I will definitely have to try this. My friendships have been on my mind a lot lately, especially since I seem to go for weeks at a time before remembering that I didn't call so-and-so back. :) Kristin? I know how you could rekindle your friendship with Hope...send her the first two paragraphs of "Your Life as a Pie Chart". My, God. If I had a friend in my life who felt that way about me and our friendship, and was able to express it in such heartfelt terms, I'd sure want to know. I'd want to hear it. And you know what? She undoubtedly has equally heartfelt things to express about you. But, if nothing's ever said, then nothing's ever heard. I'm sorry, but sometimes the "starvation rations" we put ourselves on in regards to maintaining our friendships just don't make sense. I'm guilty of it, too. And it just makes me sad. Erin, good suggestion. If I can find her, I'll try it. Maybe I'll just print out the blog post and put it in the mail.... Wow, ya know, friends didn't even figure into my pie chart. How sad is that? Maybe e-mailing friends at work counts? |
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a couple of things:
1. who's to say that said friends' pie charts are not similarly distributed, with not as much time as they'd like to spend with you, even if you did change your % designations?
2. why not combine friendship into a couple of other areas, say, exercising with a friend, gardening with a friend, watching YouTube videos with a friend?
3. as you pointed out, your pie chart will change. take a look at how your pie chart was divided up 5, 10, or 20 years ago. as long as you are being fulfilled, your pie chart is where it needs to be. that said, if you really feel that the lack of active friendships is bringing you down, then you may need to change your chart to fix it.