I hope all of us are open to making new friends and beginning new relationships. Recently, I have made some new friends. Then too, it's really magical when someone you've always seen hanging around, and you all of a sudden notice each other and become excited about things you like in each other that you never noticed before.
A banal relationship can suddenly become meaningful, and you know what it takes? Patience. Relinquishing our usual set of expectations in order to learn about how somebody else sees the world. So often we scoff at people who are living life differently from us. My friends, you will never make new friends this way. You will never learn more about people, or human nature if you insist that your way of living, your values, your likes and dislikes about people are the only ones that exist.
I have noticed that when I am jealous of somebody for whatever reason, I am quick to pull out my list of standards and decide that this person does not match up, and I rationalize that he or she is inferior to me. Imagine if I let go of that! Imagine if I let go of that from my heart, and accepted someone even though I felt threatened by him or her! I could end up being friends with a really cool person! Jealousy is such a destroyer of both the one who feels it and the one who it is aimed at.
So making new friends requires an open mind. And it can be very exciting to discover both new things about people, and new things about ourselves. Let us all pull ourselves out of the rut we are in with our predetermined expectations. They can only lock us into a place where there can be no progress.
♬ Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over
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