Friendship As Achievement
I’ve been thinking a lot about self-worth lately - about the different ways we determine our worth. Many of my clients are in transition from one life stage to another, and the work of that often includes redefining one’s sense of self. Questions like these come up… What are you about? What does the way you’ve spent your time thus far say about who you’ve been? Who do you want to be now? How have your values changed? What values do you want to embrace into the future? How do you live out what you value in your everyday life? Is our assessment of ourselves enough, in terms of how well we’ve executed our values? Or, is some external evidence necessary to prove we’ve done a good job? Are we honest with ourselves? Would someone whose life shows that money and social status is a consistent quest explicitly say that they value these things above others?
In recent discussions about how we respond to these questions, all kinds of concepts have come up. Some people cite their contributions to their profession or workplace as the thing through which they define their worth. Through a traditional definition of achievement, they’ve made this much money, developed this product or procedure, served this number of clients, etc. and therefore have made their mark. Others look at family - the number of children raised or the amount of themselves they’ve poured into building their family. Faith often comes up here - many religions have a specific view on how followers are to live their lives and define their worth. Some people adopt a combination of these and others.
Family relationships get a lot of air time in these conversations, but here’s a question … what about friendships? Sure, those folks who value relationships in general might throw these in with their other significant relationships as evidence of a life well-lived in the relationship arena. But, is the cultivation of an abundant and thriving friendship landscape enough of an achievement, in and of itself, on which to hang one’s sense of worth? What if someone chose career over family? Perhaps they have a big job and plenty of friends of varying degrees of closeness. Can their domain of friendship replace the sense of success they might have had by raising a family? What if they went the family route over career? Sure, they’ve had jobs, but not ones by which they’d define themselves. Regardless of their family ties, can healthy friendships stand in for career when they reflect on the successes of their lives?
I’m sure you can guess my perspective about this, and there’s a lot of research that backs it up. But what do you think? Does making, showing up for, and supporting friends, both new and old, and having them do the same for you, constitute achievement? Can one say that they have been successful in life simply for having loved their friends well and having been loved well by friends in return?
