You’ve heard the childhood ditty: ‘Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver the other gold.’
Sure, you should make new friends and keep your old friends too. But I think this childhood song misses a powerful opportunity to take the concept of new and old with respect to friends to the next level:
Make new friends with old people. Is your mind blown? I’ll elaborate.
Immediately after graduating from college, the single person that I shared the most about my life with was a 70-year-old nun who was my boss at my job in an underserved high school. We spent most of our days together, and even one pretty long night when we drove 2.5 hours each way to hear Greg Mortenson speak. (Too bad he turned out to be a bit of snake oil salesman.) While she wasn’t the best partner in the all-school badminton tournament (we went down in the first round), she taught me a great deal about hard work and caring about others. And when she shared with me that she loved her work because she found it life giving, she gave me something to strive for in my own life.
Later while living in Manhattan, a city chock full of people my own age, I developed a friendship with a fellow ND alum, Tom, Class of 1950. You'd be surprised at how much we had in common: sense of humor, love of ND Football, Friday night plans. It was a joy to swap stories with someone with so much experience and perspective and who, quite frankly, was killin’ it more in Manhattan at age 85 than I was at age 25. In fact, the only hiccup Tom and I encountered was when he tried to set me up with his grandson. But I blame that more on myself; can’t knock a 25-year-old guy for being a little skeptical of a girl who leads with, “Hi, I’m a friend of your Grandpop’s; we’re in a church group together.” Not exactly sexy, to say the least.
High school and college gave me the false impression that the only people worth befriending were those who fell within a four year radius of my own age. The real world has taught me a lot of valuable lessons: unlike sweaters, sweater pants are not acceptable for a professional environment; sometimes when a guy says, “I’ll call you,” he accidentally leaves out the final word of that sentence, which is ‘never;’ and inevitably the only cover letters people read are ones you send that include mistakes.
But above all, the real world has taught me that friends come in all ages. So, make new friends, keep the old, and additionally, keep the old in mind when considering those new friends to make.
Sure, you should make new friends and keep your old friends too. But I think this childhood song misses a powerful opportunity to take the concept of new and old with respect to friends to the next level:
Make new friends with old people. Is your mind blown? I’ll elaborate.
Immediately after graduating from college, the single person that I shared the most about my life with was a 70-year-old nun who was my boss at my job in an underserved high school. We spent most of our days together, and even one pretty long night when we drove 2.5 hours each way to hear Greg Mortenson speak. (Too bad he turned out to be a bit of snake oil salesman.) While she wasn’t the best partner in the all-school badminton tournament (we went down in the first round), she taught me a great deal about hard work and caring about others. And when she shared with me that she loved her work because she found it life giving, she gave me something to strive for in my own life.
Later while living in Manhattan, a city chock full of people my own age, I developed a friendship with a fellow ND alum, Tom, Class of 1950. You'd be surprised at how much we had in common: sense of humor, love of ND Football, Friday night plans. It was a joy to swap stories with someone with so much experience and perspective and who, quite frankly, was killin’ it more in Manhattan at age 85 than I was at age 25. In fact, the only hiccup Tom and I encountered was when he tried to set me up with his grandson. But I blame that more on myself; can’t knock a 25-year-old guy for being a little skeptical of a girl who leads with, “Hi, I’m a friend of your Grandpop’s; we’re in a church group together.” Not exactly sexy, to say the least.
High school and college gave me the false impression that the only people worth befriending were those who fell within a four year radius of my own age. The real world has taught me a lot of valuable lessons: unlike sweaters, sweater pants are not acceptable for a professional environment; sometimes when a guy says, “I’ll call you,” he accidentally leaves out the final word of that sentence, which is ‘never;’ and inevitably the only cover letters people read are ones you send that include mistakes.
But above all, the real world has taught me that friends come in all ages. So, make new friends, keep the old, and additionally, keep the old in mind when considering those new friends to make.
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