Curating Beautiful Friendships

Last week, a longtime friend who operates a medical clinic asked for some feedback on his hiring practices.  Our conversation made me realize that our approach to deciding who we work with should really be the same as that of the friendships we nurture and hold onto.

First, there must be trust, and the best thing we can do to have relationships that are rich in trust is to consistently show others through our behaviour that they can always count on us to have their best interest in mind.

People who are inclined to squeeze as much as they can from others without wanting to be a blessing to them are best to avoid - in my experience, this mindset rarely changes, and such people are deeply conditioned to target those who they can reap the most benefit from without having to be a thoughtful friend back.

So how do we choose which relationships to nurture and hold onto? While being the best possible friend we can, we must stay aware of the trail that others are leaving behind them. Does a person leave others better or worse off?

A person who consistently leaves others feeling upset is not someone we want to give ourselves to. Our time and resources being finite, we want to preserve ourselves for those we strongly sense are honourable, kind to everyone, not just those in the same tribe, and generous in heart - when we come across such people, there isn't any wondering about them, we just know that regardless of socioeconomic status, they leave others and the world better off.

To the magic of thoughtfully curating truly beautiful friendships,

Ben