Taking Time to Make Friends.

Albert Einstein said “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” Lately, it doesn't seem to be working.

A question on LinkeIn got me started thinking about time and spending it with friends.

It takes time to get to know someone and we have so little of it. And then, part of it is that we expect so much out of the time we spend with people. We think that every moment should be full of fun and activities... doing things, going to events, etc. Trying to schedule that gets hectic. And we don't want to crowd our down time.

But remember when you were kids, you'd just "hang out" together? It was your "down time" but you'd spend it together. There were little demands on what you'd do together. "hey, wanna watch tv/listen to music/surf the net?"

Sure, when we become "adults" we don't have much "hanging out" time, but most of us do have some time on weekends or even evenings when we're zoned out watching tv, or sitting in the yard watching the kids or the dog or whatever.

I think as adults we feel silly asking people to share such mundane time. But I have a handful of friends where we do just that... hang out. Usually there's food involved ... and NASCAR. Or the Food Channel. You might be surprised at the response you might get if you invite friends to just do nothing for a little while.