Drowning in Overwhelm:

No Time for Friends?

It’s been a while since my last post. I had to take a break from posting seven days a week. As I gave myself that space to finish my novel and catch up with projects that were dragging, I also took time to be with friends.

That’s when I heard it for the first time. “I’m drowning” I’m too overwhelmed to deal with anything else” “I’m too busy to be with my friends.” It suddenly hit me…

The way of friendship is changing.

It’s not a change I like at all.

People are so busy that they can hardly take time to be with their friends.

I realized that in years past I would talk on the phone with my friends almost every day. I’d see them almost every week. I knew what was going on in their lives. We share our pain and our pleasure. We were there for each other’s ordeals.

And now, the phone rarely rings with a call from a friend.

It’s beyond ironic. It’s tragic that now that we have email, we rarely write each other letters. Now that we have cellphones, we rarely have a long, heart-to-heart conversation with a friend.

In my birthday, a friend said that she was so overwhelmed for the past six months that she could not deal with anyone or anything else. This impacted me deeply, as I had missed her terribly during that time.

It was then that I realized that in past years we would be supporting each other through whatever she was going through.

“Is my definition of friendship obsolete?” I asked myself.

Are we working so much, multi-tasking so hard and dealing with such a complex, stressful life that we don’t have time for deep friendship?

It strikes me in the business words how I receive promotional emails with affiliate links and the entrepreneur presents that business association as “my friend.” I’m sure that’s true in some cases. But ALL your affiliates and business associations being “friends” sounds flaky to me.

Are we abusing the term “friend” or is it losing it’s devotional meaning in a world in which relationships are becoming increasingly harder to sustain, more casual, less deep and more complicated?

I really hope this is not the case. A true friendship is something to cherish.

As the stress of modern life increases, we should share MORE ~not less~ with our friends.

It has been documented profusely that having friends and a support group makes an essential difference when one is facing crisis, stress and even disease.

Could it be that this change in our friendship patterns is part of the increased stress?

What do you think?

I’d like to know.

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