On true friendship

While researching on friendship, I stumbled into formidable quotes.

Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer. Jean de La Fontaine

My best friend is the one who brings out the best of me. Henry Ford

Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything. Muhammad Ali

Why is true friendship so rare? - Because people are jealous
In my daily life, I find that true friendship is hard to find. Indeed, one aspect of true friendship involves the ability to be truly happy for the good things that happen to your friends. Can you be happy for your friend who has the nicest girlfriend and family? who goes on holidays every month to the most exotic places in the world because he can? who just found the best job in the world and gets paid lots of money for it?
It's easier when you are happy yourself. Imagine being stuck in a job you hate and that pays coconuts and with no special someone despite you trying really hard to find one  - can you still be happy for that friend who has it all? Well, don't worry, for your true friends, you will be (I hope for you).

I have met many jealous people who could only be happy for me when they were happy themselves. I learnt the hard way that they were not true friends indeed. Whenever I became too lucky or too happy, these people would become jealous instead of being happy for me. Jealousy led to gossip. Gossip always led to drama. Drama eventually weakened our "friendship". (cf. also my article on the Defining Decade. I am so happy to finally be able to spot potential true friends.) Move away from these toxic people and remember that true friends will always be happy for you. Never feel bad for being happy!

Does true friendship last forever? - Yes but you have to cultivate it, at least a little bit
Are we supposed to be friends with our friends for the rest of our lives? And if we don't stay friends, are we bad friends? Does it mean we were not true friends back then? 

I am now much less close to some friends than I used to be but I do cherish those friendships. I am thinking of a few people that I have lost over the years and with whom I am not so close anymore because I moved to this island or they moved away. I know that back then, I could ask anything to these few friends and they would be there for me. They would pick me up in the middle of the night or give me a place to stay when I needed one. They would be here to celebrate my successes but also here to listen to me in my moments of doubt or sadness. Maybe today is different and they would not be the first people I call, but I do believe we will always have that special connection. 

Sometimes I see these friends after months or even years of separation, and it's like we saw each other last week. I then feel absolutely sht for being such a bad friend, I realise how much I miss them and I promise myself to see them more often. I was lucky this time but I might lose them one day.

How can we spot true friends? - I don't know but take a chance
Our true friends will reveal themselves in time of need (this one, most people know). We have all experienced that disappointing feeling of finding out that some people we thought were our friends were in fact not that faithful. I think that time will tell. We can only really find out when shit happens. Shit happens, so eventually we do find out.

One thing I would advise and it may be the wrong way of doing things but that's what I do: always give the best of yourself to these people you think could become great friends with. Offer them a place to stay when they need it, introduce them to your friends, help them to get that job they want so much .. Do all that even if they have not done any of that for you yet because you just met them. Take the chance. It's unlikely you could regret it however the potential upside is uncapped.

Sometimes you have to do the first move towards someone to realise they can become truly awesome. After all, that's what friends do: they will bring out the best of you and you will find yourself being an incredibly patient, generous or understanding person because your friends made you. You cared so much about them that you became all that for them.

A perfect end to the summer

I have just been back from a short week in Ibiza and I had the best time!
I have realised some important things and observed some other things while I was there.

1. Traveling is important. Travel as much as you can!
Ibiza is not the most cultural place of all, I grant you that. Even so, being away for five days made a huge difference on my mindset. I met new people, I experienced - even for a few days - a new lifestyle. I came back refreshed, open-minded, happy and with this sentiment I can conquer the world. It is hard to describe and priceless at the same time. I feel you can only get that kind of perspective when you go away. If you have to chose, spend on experiences, not on things!

2. Friendships need to be nurtured!
I went to Ibiza with some very good friends, I feel I had some real quality time with them and the kind of fun you can only have when you travel together. This definitely is a trip we will remember and it did not need to involve deep conversations about the meaning of life.  Friendships should never be taken for granted. If you don't text, call, visit, meet up or travel together, there is no surprise there, one day you'll become strangers to these people you used to call friends.


3. Women can learn a thing or two from men's friendships
Men and women have a very different way of expressing their friendships. There is so much to say about it that I could write an entire book on it. I must say I admire men's friendships a lot. They can basically say everything to each other ("you put on 10kg, maybe you should consider doing something about it", "you shouldn't have dated my ex", "I want to date this girl please don't date her too", "I can't afford this restaurant let's go somewhere else"). All they have to do is make a joke about it. It will not sound too serious but the message will go through. Also, once an issue has been resolved, it is resolved, they don't need to come back to it and talk about it again and again and again. No hard feelings, moving on. 

With women there is always so much drama, tears, gossips. It's so tiring and unnecessary. I am a woman too and I know I can be like that sometimes but I absolutely hate myself for it. This is why I have mostly male friends or excellent female friends - they just get the best out of me and not the worst. I used to be surrounded by "friends" who were constantly gossiping and arguing. I removed this toxicity from my life a long time ago now (incidentally felt a bit "friendless" for a few weeks) and never looked back.

4.  We should be grateful for whatever we have, everyday.
We met this amazing woman on her birthday. We could not believe she was 44. She had told us the sum of the two figures of her age added up to 8 and we were seriously hesitating between 26 and 35. I asked her for the name of her face cream and she said, her secret was that she was happy and that everyday she was actively saying "today I am grateful for xx". It's obviously totally BS as to why she looked 15 years younger but I thought it was still a very cool concept and so I have been doing it for 4 days now. Happiness is a mindset!

The pursuit of happiness - it's not all about chocolate and shopping!

I swear all my posts will not be about how to live a happy life.

However.

Have you ever wondered why this very – very – overweight person is queuing in front of you at Macdonalds? You can't help but think "dude, why are you eating at Macdonalds when you are obviously so overweight?" (a bit judgmental but so true). Surely that person must know that 1. he/she is overweight 2. being overweight does not make him/her happy 3. eating at Macdonalds does not help them being less overweight. So we wonder. Why so little logic?

As a woman in my thirties, I have had the extreme pleasure of trying tons of diet of all sorts (even though some for a few hours only) and/or being surrounded by girls who tried many diets too. The protein diet, the no-carbs diet, the caveman diet, the liver diet, the celebrity diet, the vegan diet.. Name it. There are just so many of them, it's madness. I still haven't found the grail recipe of eating lots and being skinny. However, in my search for a real arbitrage in the matter, I came across the infamous and very controversial Dukan diet (from Dr. Pierre Dukan).

We may have experienced, approved, disapproved or even cursed the Dukan diet but there is a point I found insightful in his version 2.0 (aka "The Nutritional Staircase") about serotonin. Also, it explains why Miss or Mister X is queuing at Macdonalds against better judgement. Here it goes:

There was a time when men and women were living a much more hazardous life. They lived in cave and had many predators and had to hunt to get food. So the human body, which is ultra smart, was basically creating serotonin - aka the pleasure hormone - to reward any good behavior that would help them survive. Eating was one of them. 

Some several thousand years later, our body still creates serotonin when we eat. Luckily the majority of us don't have to hunt to get food anymore, actually it's quite the opposite. Food is omnipresent, and we are constantly encouraged to consume. Eating too much has actually become the problem. The signals sent by our bodies haven't quite adjusted as fast as our lifestyles. This is why we are still being rewarded when we eat, when in fact, it would be less necessary today than it used to be.

Dukan then comes with a list of things that do not involve eating and are equally likely to create serotonin. He calls the list "the 10 pillars of happiness" in hope that we move away from food to other non-fattening equally rewarding activities. 

Here is the list:
1. Sex and family: the need to find a partner and build a family
2. Power: the need to be good at something and be recognized by society for it
3. Home: the need to go back somewhere safe, calm, our territory
4. Nature: the need for green, the love of animals
5. Play: the need to play to learn, communicate, exchange, have fun
6. Group: the need to belong to a community
7. Body: the need to use our body and do a physical activity
8. Sacred: the need to look up for something greater than us
9. Beauty: the need for harmony and esthetic emotions
10. Food: it's the most vital and easiest way to get comfort. A lack of accomplishment in the other fields would apparently push us towards Food even faster.


I love that list! It's a good list to keep in mind and it's reassuring to know there are scientific ways of being or feeling happy. Going for a walk in the park, playing tennis, admiring paintings at the museum or a beautiful sunset - these could all do the trick! Best of all, these activities don't make you fat and they don't make you spend money. It's not all about chocolate and shopping - hurray! Now you too have the list, have fun!