Why maintaining your relationships with friends and family is so important…

I truly believe that our life is as good as our relationships. When you have healthy and positive relationships with those around you and those who are close to you, that spills over into other areas / aspects of your life. The same thing happens when you have negative relationships, it affects other areas of your life as well. 

So, how can we just simply keep things healthy? With old friends, with family? Plan out time to see them. Dont just go and see them when you have time during your busy schedule. Make time for family and friends who are important to you. 

I didn’t live in Buffalo, NY for around 5.5 years, and I am still very good friends with the same guys I was close with before I left. It was truly important to me to maintain those relationships when I went away for college. They were my boys during high school and I wanted us to maintain the relationship we had. 

Maintaining relationships is playing offense in your life. It is an effort that you need to make, you need to go and do it. It is not because your friends forgot about you or they dont care, but people get busy including yourself and they get tied up with their own life. We, Alpha life members, are going to make an effort to maintain the relationships we still want in our life. Family, usually they will call you frequently and not forget so much about you, but maybe you havent talked to that one friend you used to be pretty close with.


Side note, rather than waiting for your family to call you, make an effort to reach out to them and see how happy they will be when the role reversed. I did this with my Italian grandma who always calls me, and I one day out of my busy day just called her and it absolutely made not only her day but her week. She was surprised it was me and caught off guard and the happiest person in the world that day. Now, do i not love her because i never call her? No, usually she calls me, but what a difference it made when i called her. When you take the initiative and call someone else, it makes the other person feeling like you were thinking of them, which you were!! 

Back to friends, when you no longer live in the same city as your old friends, a simple text message, set up a time to call periodically, facetime, simply making a small effort to stay in touch with them truly goes a long way. Yeah, life is a lot different now and life changes all the time, but you are both growing and going in your separate paths. 

Asking how someones doing, or saying, “thinking about you how's everything goin?” That simple message can truly go a long way. And lets say things are a lot different between you guys now, send the message anyways. 

Maintaining relationships is an offensive play in your life. It is up to you to put that effort out there, you need to be the one making the effort. 

I am so happy I maintained the relationships i did. 

It can be really hard sometimes to remember to call all of your friends, you both are so busy, sometimes they wont even answer and forget to text you back! It doesnt matter, the key is to never take anything personal, dont take it to heart, and give them a call the next day or in a couple days. 

We need to start looking at life with other people perspectives in mind. You never know what other people are going through, what other people are thinking, or whats going on in their lives. Chances are, it usually has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. Never take anything personal.

Every year i send a holiday text to just under 50 people. I always make sure i send a quick text to my close friends and i’ve turned this into a tradition. People (especailly the girls) expect a text from me now. Does it feel too much sometimes? Like do i feel like embarrassed? But then take a second and think, how nice is it for someone to text you every holiday for the past 6 years at least? No matter what they always have texted you, and thats pretty cool. 

Learning to not care what others think is so important. Learning to be uncomfortable and not caring when people judge you is so hard. When you can not care anymore about when people judge you, and realize that when someone judges you, they are really judging themselves, not you.. When you can realize that your whole world will change. It is going to be so hard at first, what wont be hard is being yourself. That should be easy to be your true, authentic self. What gets hard is when you start to worry about what others will think of you. When you start to be yourself and put who you truly are out there and not try to post things to portray this image thats not really you on insta, or snapchat, or whatever it is, you will get some heat. Some people will judge you, theyll either do it in their heads because you think people are, or some may be more open about it than you. But, once you stay strong and continue being the authentic, genuine, person you are, people will start to embrace that and those that dont shouldnt be in your life. 

We all need to be authentic and our true selves. If you’re a guy who posts only hunting pics (shoutout chris schaefer), or fishing, or only hockey pics, who cares what anyone else has to say about your insta? You may think theyre a hick, they dont pull, or they’re an absolute beauty but in reality kids an absolute toby (freeze tarp refey). If you cant accept that your friends insta is straight hunting pics, youre not a good friend. We all have different interests, and different hobbies, we all lead different lives. Whats important is to only stay focused with your own life, because by worrying and judging other peoples lives, you lose track of your own life. So, take a second right now and ask yourself, what do i need to do today right now to get my life in the direction i want it to go? And also, who / what do i need to do and talk to to help maintain the relationships i have with my friends and family?

What about when you and your old friends have different interests and start to drift apart?
That is completely normal and just part of life. When you want to maintain a relationship you will know it, you shouldn't have to question it. When someone drifts out of your life, it will almost be very seamless, you won't even notice in a way. It happens very slowly over time, and will be completely painless. This has happened to all of us at some point, and is just a part of life. It is always important to keep in mind to never burn any bridges in your life. You truly never know when you can cross paths with someone later in life, so why ever burn that bridge? You have no idea when they could help you out in life or when you can even help them. It is very humbling for an old friend to come to you for help very later in life. Never burn bridges, always end on a good note. On good terms.    

Life is all about having a positive impact on others. It is so much better when we can learn to give others the satisfaction and drop our egos for a second. This can be applied to anything. Also, just as important to save the other man's face. “Quote from dale carnegie”  
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