Keeping Your Circle Small

There are only 24 hours in a day, and 7~8 of them are spent sleeping, 8+ of them are spent working, and the remainder have to be spent divided between eating, maintenance, growth, recreation, and socialization (not necessarily mutually exclusive). This layout is a bit different from lifestyle to lifestyle granted, but the point remains the same. That being, we don’t have a great amount of time left over for things like recreation and socialization.

Even if we have chosen minimal lifestyles where the upkeep/maintenance is low,  and we eat only to live (instead of the other way around), and our passions (our growth) have a very prominent social component to them (like most do), It’s still leaves little time to build strong relationships. This is just a natural part of life. Part of becoming an adult.

It is the reason why as we become adults we have fewer and fewer friends. It is the reason why when we become parents we retain even fewer friends still. A parents “Growth” and “Socialization” time gets almost fully devoted to their children. It’s the reason why we begin to combine these different needs together to save time, or just omit some altogether. Eating time becomes entertainment/recreation (the beginning of health problems), maintenance is skipped altogether (again health problems), and taking on any personal projects for growth is often tossed aside.

With all this going on, it is impossible to maintain a large social circle; impossible to keep in contact with a large group of friends and family. These relationships can’t be maintained and grow. I have only one thing to say about that:

 

It’s OK

 

really

 

If we have too much in our lives that we can’t devote time and energy to some people that we are close to, don’t sweat it. THAT’S LIFE. Many relationships will come and go. And if those relationships were strong in the first place, they may be strong enough to pick back up in another phase in life. Trying to devote what little time we have to a large circle of friends means not devoting enough time to any one of them to have any growth with any of them. This is just wasted time. What would we rather have, 15 acquaintances, or 5 close friends?

The only thing I DO suggest, is that we keep and maintain a very small circle. About 3, 4, or 5 close friends/family that we connect with regularly. This way we can devote enough time to each of them to have some level of growth in those relationships. It is important to our own mental stability that we do this. Likelihood is that once we have “weeded” all of the toxic people and those we are not compatible with, we will be down to 3 or 4 friends anyway. These relationships are necessary toward our growth; they keep us stable, focused. They also provide an outlet for our angst and doubt.