“The Friendship Factor” was the first book to make me think about the importance of friendship, and that how I had been building them was more careless than careful. Over the years I have come to understand the truth of the statement that, “deep friendship requires cultivation..."

With all we have discussed in this series based on the article from Lead Different titled "The Lost Art of Friendship," now is the time to take action by investing in quality friendships.  This episode sets us up to take action.  Enjoy building friendships.

William Deresiewicz writing in his essay "The Death of Friendship" says, "We seem terribly fragile now. A friend fulfills her duty, we suppose, by taking our side..."  This runs counter to the idea of depth and friendship leaning toward the superficiality of 'leaving each other alone,' instead of 'trying to make each other better.'  

In this episode we talk about the 3 qualities we can invest in which increase the depth of our friendships.

William Deresiewicz writing in his essay "The Death of Friendship" makes the observation that modern day friendship is lacking in comparison to the ancients or classical friendship.  He writes, "As for the moral content of classical friendship, its commitment to virtue and mutual improvement, that, too, has been lost."  This  episode is about reclaiming the true meaning of friendship, returning to the quality look and feel the ancients experienced.

This episode discusses the truth ancients believed about friendship, that it requires extraordinary qualities of character.  We discuss 3 key qualities in this episode.

This episode discusses the truth that friendship is rare, precious, and hard won.  This definition is taking from the ancients based on the essay "The Death of Friendship by William Deresiewicz."

This episode takes as its thesis the idea that "We cannot be friends with everyone otherwise friendship has no meaning." Before you react consider the ideas inside this episode:

This week I saw fear in the face of a young leader. He reminded me of my own fear at a similar age. This lead me to create an article called "Why Are We Afraid To Lead."  You can find the article on Lead Different.

This is the 7th episode of our "Lost Art of Friendship" podcast series based on the Lead Different article of the same name which you can find here. This episode begins the breakdown of 7 questions based on reflections from the William Deresiewicz essay "The Death of Friendship."

The question answered in this episode:  What is the difference between Friendship and Distraction?

Here is a snippet to give you an idea where we are going in this episode, "A common mistake is to identify relationships as friendships, when the only purpose they serve is to distract us from the uncomfortable, difficult, or painful."

Teenagers are experiencing a punishing loneliness during this pandemic. This experience is chronicled by Ellen McCarthy in “The loneliness of an interrupted adolescence.”

Teens reflect the general erosion of mental health during this pandemic. Everyone is effected in some way.  The Lost Art of Friendship was written to highlight the importance of friendship in battling the emotional challenges of this pandemic as well as the general and ongoing need for genuine friendships.  The hope is to provide definition to what they are and insight on how to build them.  You can read the original article here.  You can also find previous episodes of the podcast on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast

"Something I have learned about my life and the lives of the hundreds I have spoken to about their emotional and spiritual lives is that loneliness is experienced more often than admitted."

This quote and episode theme is drawn from "The Lost Art of Friendship," which you can find at Lead Different.