Friends | Give
How to strengthen relationships
Giving time and attention has been linked to strengthening social ties, group status, self-worth, purpose, overall health, resilience, and a lot more good things.
On top of all that, generous behavior has been show to be contagious. If you start, it’s very likely to enable that behavior in others, a self-reinforcing circle of kindness. So let’s start that feedback loop:
Give within your limits
Cultivate generosity
Generosity is a muscle, a habit, and like everything, it needs to be trained to make it an easy, natural behavior. According to research, the best way of doing this is by combining intentional actions with close connections.
Give intentionally: A bit like a gratitude journal trains you to see things to be grateful for, a giving habit trains you to see opportunities to give. Make it a habit to give something to somebody every day. It can be just a word, a hug, a flower.
Focus on real connections: When giving, give directly to people you see and can interact with. Seeing the reactions on their faces will have the largest effects on both your happiness and your habit formation.
Contribute in your community: Most communities run on volunteering. Give your time, and as an added bonus you’ll meet new people and form new bonds. Not sure where you can help? Just offer and ask. There is always a need.
The place where this principle really shines is Burning Man: A festival where you can’t buy anything, only gift things to others. There is no bartering, you gift to strangers and never see them again. When I first saw this working in real life I was thinking: If as humanity we are able to pull this off, just by gifting, I think we’ll be fine.
Christoph
Stay with yourself
Giving is a great thing, as long as you don’t give more than you can. Especially in friendships this can be hard, when seeing people close to you in need. But they don’t benefit from you eventually running out of steam and silently turning cynical.
Avoid being used: There is always a risk that if you give generously, somebody will take without feeling inspired to give. Protect yourself by playing generous tid for tat: Give often but if you notice pure taking in the other person, exclude them.
Set boundaries: A very simple forumla for communicating these is “What I need + What I will do to protect that”. E.g., “I can’t take calls after 9pm because I need to wind down. I won’t answer but text you in the morning.”
Ask for support: People love to give and help. You are offering them an opportunity to do that by asking for help. By articulating your needs. The more comfortable you feel doing this, the more people feel they can trust you.
Give repair
None of us is perfect, we all make mistakes. Sometimes we don’t even know we did, or who did, and a misunderstanding explodes sepctacularly. Sometimes we just drift apart. Assuming this isn’t a pattern and you trust and value them, give the first step:
Reach out: Maybe you made a mistake, maybe you didn’t. The important thing is: You still value your friend. You want to be in their live and them to be in yours. Swallow your pride, reach out, tell them you value them, offer to talk it through.
Listen: No matter what your perception of the situation is, really try to understand their point. Don’t defend yourself, just repeat back to them what you understood they said. Make them feel seen
Apologize: Own your specific actions. Don’t say “I’m sorry you felt that way” but focus on your actions and what you can do. Something like: “I’m sorry I did x and that it caused y. I will do z to prevent this from happening again.”
One of the most satisfying things from last year was reconnecting with an old school friend who used to be one of my closest friends. We never fell out, we just drifted apart over time, which made catching up feel especially meaningful.
There was something genuinely uplifting about revisiting old memories, feeling that shared history come back so naturally, and realising the friendship was still there.
Since then, we have started seeing each other fairly often again, and it has left me feeling grateful that some connections can be picked back up even after years apart.
Cameron
Some ideas to get started
Think of one thing you could do this week to make somebody smile. Commit to doing it on your change
Is there a friendship you’d like to repair? Take a few minutes to reflect on this.
Missing something? Add a comment and we’ll add it to next year’s version
Great post and video! It reminded me of the latest episode of Peter Singer's Lives Well Lived podcast with John Helliwell from the World Happiness Report. He made the point that if you want to be happier, don't focus on optimizing yourself first. Focus on investing in other people.