Friends help you put your best foot forward.

Don’t you just hate it when your friends are right? Especially when it means you’ve got to dig a little deeper and do what you’re capable of doing. When they see your capacity to show up, to produce, to do great work, even when you are about to settle for good enough. When you are about to be a little lazy and deliver a product that’s not as good as it ought to be.

On our own, it’s easy to make excuses. It’s easy to say there isn’t enough time, or talent, or resources. It’s tempting to hide behind the excuses and play it safe, take the easy route.

But a good friend, a wise mentor, someone who sees you for who you are, will not let you show up that way, any more than they’d let you go out half dressed. They are not oblivious to your faults, but they treasure your talents and won’t let you forget them.

And, oh, aren’t we grateful for those very same friends! They see right through our reluctance and resistance and anxiety. They see our capacities, they have confidence in us when we have doubt, and they encourage us not to settle for being and doing less than our best.

Thank you, friends.

Who in your life has confidence that’s greater than your doubt? Who in your life loves you enough to tell you when you’re holding back? Who in your life cares enough to take a chance on offending you, because they see the larger, better you? Who in your life does this and still loves you as you are?

Go. Find those people and thank them. And be that kind of friend or mentor in someone else’s life.

And, if you don’t have people like that in your life, let’s talk about how to find them, how to find and nurture relationships that help you to be and do your best.

Menil Magnolia, salt print on silk
by Gika Rector

She was fun, totally fun. Life was an adventure, a joy, something to relish with friends and loved ones. Until it wasn’t. Until it all came crashing in and it was too much.

I’m smart, and I’m interested, and I’m curious. But it still took me a while to notice the pattern of her life. Happy, lively, engaged, generous and fun, crashing and burning. Dark and stormy. Tears. How to keep going? Too much pain.

Once, I kept her going, when she had decided to end it. It took her a long time to forgive me. What’s the most loving thing to do for someone in pain? Simpler to say than do: be with them, love them unconditionally, let them be as they are.

Eventually her heart was breaking physically and surgeons cracked open her chest to make the repair. More pain, more healing, some lighter moments, more pain, more healing.

Years later, a mystery and a miracle. A strange accident, a silent heart attack. The miracle: her body had created new arteries, bypassing the surgeons’ bypass.

More recently: new choices, new opportunities, a glimpse of light, rediscovery of self and friends. Not easy, not without pain, but with glimpses of grace.

So much can happen, given just a touch of grace.

Blessings on all who suffer and go on, who wonder what it’s all about and go on, who think it might not be worth it and still go on.

With gratitude for blessings.

With gratitude for grace.

With gratitude for life.

With gratitude for friends.