Friend a Day – Everyone Else

My Friend a Day commitment was to write 100 installments and today’s blog entry is number 100.

I have a lot more than 100 friends and figuring out who I’m going to write about last has proven to be a rather large challenge.

And so, my friends, I’m copping out.  100 was an arbitrary number.  I could have just as easily written about 10 friends.  Or 50.  Or 99.

I’m not copping out, though.  It was always my plan to make Friend #100 about all the friends I didn’t mention.

If I didn’t get to you, I’m sorry.  The choice wasn’t personal.  It had a lot more to do with who I felt like writing about on a particular day than any desire to write about specific people.

Writing about my friends made me realize how incredibly lucky we all are to have friends.  As I forced myself to focus only on the positive aspects of people I know, I realized how much time we all spend focusing on the negative in ourselves and in others.

How fantastic is it that through such a disparate web of activities – college, Fringe, Renaissance Festival, CONvergence, etc – I have gotten to know so many amazing people?

And how unfair that I only chose to write about 100?  There are literally hundreds more I could write about.  Why didn’t I write about any of them?

Well, I’m writing about all of them now.  Sort of.

All the people in my life matter to me because they are smart, funny, thoughtful, creative, playful, tenacious, talented, friendly, complicated, and mostly because they are present.

Human beings are social animals and while there are certainly times where I don’t need to be social, I’m quite glad that my life has provided me with so many opportunities to be around others.

Everyone has value to someone else.  Everyone.  The trick for me is to figure out what makes them valuable and to celebrate that thing.  If you can, throw out all the rest.

Of a friend, I once said that all the best parts of them were the reason I put up with all parts that drove me nuts.  Over time, I’ve come to realize that the same can be said of all the people I know.  The best parts of all of them are the parts that are important to me.

So my final takeaway from the Friend a Day project is this:  I may not be able to write about every friend I have.  I can still choose to appreciate every friend I have.

And I do.  Thanks for reading.