Yes, All Friends Make Mistakes
Last week in episode #10 with author Jessica Speer who wrote BFF or NRF, we talked briefly about her nine friendship truths. We mainly focused on truth #9— which was “You choose which of your friendships to grow. Grow the healthy ones.”
In this mini-episode, I focus on Jessica’s truth #6— “Everyone makes mistakes.” If we want wiggle room to make mistakes with friends, we have to allow friends to make mistakes with us. Sounds obvious, but there are definitely people out there with a zero tolerance policy for others’ mistakes (while allowing themselves room to mess up).
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It’s true. We all make mistakes.
Many years ago I learned to think about relationships somewhat like a bank account. We make deposits and we make withdrawals. In a good friendship, there are a lot of deposits. We stay in touch. We’re there when a friend needs us. We listen. We show up. We keep a friend’s information to ourselves. We have fun together— we laugh.
Does a Friendship Withdrawal Have to Negate All the Deposits?
Every so often there will be withdrawals that come in too many forms to list, but no matter what happened, a withdrawal results in hurt feelings and disappointment. But does a withdrawal negate all the deposits— does it bring the account back to zero? It would have to be a really big withdrawal. And that can happen.
Careful of a Zero Tolerance Policy For Mistakes
But what I see too often in the questions I receive, and I can be guilty of it too, is a zero tolerance policy of sorts for mistakes. It’s just something to be aware of in our mindsets. I assume most of us want a little wiggle room to make mistakes and if that’s the case, then we have to keep all the good stuff in mind when a friend hurts our feelings.
If there isn’t enough good stuff to keep the account tipped towards the positive, if there have been too many withdrawals, then it’s probably time to let that friendship fade back.
I hope this helps!
Thank you to producer, Dave Dluger.
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