YOU CHOOSE: Your friends… or your career?
Friends Forever... for now.
Leaving school is ground zero for all of us. We all get the same starting point in life, and from then on, what we make of ourselves pretty much depends on us. And like everyone else, we think our friendships with our schoolmates will last forever.
That’s what Cathy believed a year ago. She was job-hopping with the youthful vigour of a 19-year-old alongside her best pal Emily from school when she discovered her talent for cosmetics sales. She found that she really enjoyed it despite the pittance she earned. For the first time, she chose to stay put on the job for a while… just to see how things panned out. Her best-friend Emily, however, quickly grew bored of selling lipstick and eyeliners, and continued her conquest of the classifieds.
As things turned out, Cathy didn’t have to live on peanuts for long before her salesmanship became the smooth, practiced spiel it is today. Her commissions soared, and she was soon earning a lot more than her best friend. And that’s when the trouble started: she could now buy better clothes, get better haircuts and go for better facials than Emily, and Cathy reckons that that was the beginning of the strain on their friendship.
“I don’t think it was the money,” says Cathy thoughtfully. “Emily’s not like that. But it could have been that my lifestyle was improving too fast for her. Maybe she envied me for that.”
Loading ...Graham and Julie, partners and founders of Desktop-Meditation.com disagree. They think that in this instance, it’s not that Emily envied Cathy per se. She simply envied the fact that Cathy was focused enough and determined enough to succeed.
“Friends often want what you have, but don’t want to put in the work to be successful,” say the couple.
Over the next couple of years, things got steadily worse for their friendship. Emily did not progress much. She still changed jobs every six months, and had yet to settle into some sort of rhythm. Cathy, on the other hand, had been promoted twice. This meant they spent less time together, which of course didn’t help matters much.
Cathy felt that she was losing her best friend. And she was.
A friend in need
There are some sure ways of losing all your friends.
Cathy wasn’t happy about what was happening. She wanted to save her oldest friendship from dying, but didn’t know where to begin. If she preached to Emily about how she should get some focus in her life, she would come across as condescending. But if she ignored her, they would only drift further apart.
Bill Cottringer, author of You Can Have Your Cheese and Eat It Too
“Know exactly what you did to get where you are, and share your success secrets with your friends,” says Mr Cottringer. “Be humble and avoid bragging about your own good fortune.”
That’s exactly what Steven did when he started pulling too far ahead of his best mate, Jonathan. Both disc jockeys, the two friends lived, ate and worked together for three years before things started to go awry. Steven started landing all the good gigs and Jonathan was only getting scraps. Steven says he started sensing the edgy hostility in Jonathan’s voice one Saturday night, when they were working at two vastly different venues: he was at a prime club downtown, whereas Jonathan was doing a crummy house party. Jonathan called him an unprintable name, which was normal, except that the tone in his voice seemed to have some deeper undercurrent about it.
“I mean, I was riding on Lady Luck — that’s the only reason I was doing so well,” says Steven. “Jon worked hard, but he just wasn’t getting the breaks I was. I guess he thought it unfair that I should suddenly be doing so much better than he… especially since he was the better D.J.!.”
But Steven was not about to lose his best pal to a cruel twist of fate like that. He went to great pains to help Jonathan out. He asked him to stand in for him several times on busy nights, especially when the bosses were around, so that Jonathan could practice and show off his skills. He taught him how to speak more professionally to bar managers, so that he always left a good impression. He tried everything he could think of to get Jonathan more involved in his own career, and it paid off in the end. In a couple of months, Jon was feeling better about himself… and their friendship.
“It was a close call,” Steven recalls. “Jon’s a great guy, and I know he’d do the same for me. I’m glad it worked out.”
Pride and circumstance
Steven was met with angry recrimination the first couple of times that he tried to explain to Jonathan about what it was he wanted to do. They came close to blows before Jonathan backed off.
“He was very remorseful,” says Steven. “Sure, he envied my winning streak. But he was also man enough to admit that our friendship was more important than his pride.”
Their friendship is stronger than ever because of the near-split, and Steven is happy that he managed to both salvage their partnership and help someone out at the same time.
“I mean, that’s what friends are for, right?” says Steven flippantly.
How to pick your friends for a web show.
Graham and Julie think that under the circumstances, Steven could have done no better.
“Instead of focusing on the envy, you ought to focus on your friends as beings,” say the couple. “Work with them to develop their motivation and what it is they want to achieve in their lives. As you work with them, they will gradually see their world changing and they will begin to taste success themselves.”
With that taste in their mouth, your friends will have their own sense of fulfilment, and your friendship would have passed a crucial test of worthiness. But Michael Wano, author of Refill for Life
“If they are not going to support you during the good times, where will they be there during the bad?” he asks.
Cathy lost her best-friend because she hesitated to offer her a helping hand when Emily needed it most. She chose to ignore her inner voice, and got caught in the upward spiral of her career. But although she regrets losing their ten-year friendship, she does not think she’s to blame.
“Emily and I were once great friends, but we grew apart,” Cathy says. “I wish she had taken her career more seriously, but that’s not my fault. I don’t think it was I that lost her as a friend. I think she lost me.”
No one likes to choose. Graham and Julie say that the secret to keeping your friendship going in the face of the green-eyed monster is not to cut your friends off but to give them love and encouragement. But how?
“Simple,” they say. “By treating them as you always have.”
