It’s hard when a friend changes and you didn’t. Try curious before you try hurt.
CREATIVITY
WHAT THIS MEANS
When somebody close changes direction, the first reading is usually about you: they think they are better now, they are leaving, something is wrong with how you are. That reading arrives fast and is frequently wrong. Most of the time they are following something that has nothing to do with you at all.
Ask them about it before you decide what it means. What they are getting out of the new thing, what it feels like. The question keeps the friendship open, and the answer is often far less dramatic than the version you built.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
What could you ask the friend whose change unsettled you?
MORE IN GROWTH, CHANGE & REINVENTION
- You’ll redefine success a few times. At fifteen it’s popularity. At twenty-five it might be a full night’s sleep.
- Grandma’s recipe says “add flour until it feels right.” Growing up is learning what right feels like.
- Your first lap of the pool might leave you hanging on the wall gasping. Lap ten won’t.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.