What friends are for...

While most Americans probably spent Thanksgiving Break eating turkey and hanging out with family, I spent my Thanksgiving working out (yeah, I actually went running every day over break), eating healthy (another new goal, or, let's be honest, a recently reintroduced goal) and reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. As always that book made me think about me three best friends. We're kind of our own sisterhood. We keep in touch. We're honest with each other. We tell each other what we think, even when it isn't exactly what the other person wants to hear. We have traditions. But no, we don't have pants that magically fit all four of us. And I'm kind of glad we don't. The pants helped the girls in the story to learn how to be together when they're apart - and by book four, they got too good at being apart and they forgot to find the time to be together. I don't want to get that good at being apart. I like that our traditions focus on keeping us together; I mean, we can't do our iced tea ritual without all of us there, right? ;) Haha, yes, we have a friendship ritual that involves iced tea.

Why am I thinking about this? Well, my friends are also loyal readers of this blog. They don't comment here, but they'll comment in our e-mails. And recently, one of my friends reminded me of something important...

It was in response to me talking about not just wanting a job but wanting to make a difference in the world. My friend reminded me that, "A job is just something you do; it's not who you are." I tend to forget that sometimes; I think ResLife - or Student Affairs as a professions - makes it easy to forget that.

But that's what friends are for...
To challenge what you say; to get you to reflect on your experiences; to help you grow as a person. A worse friend would have kept her mouth shut.

My friend also reminded me of something I'd said a long time ago - We were sitting in our basement and were talking about our futures and what we hope to accomplish. And I said, "When I look back at my life, I want to be able to say that I was happy more often than I was unhappy."

It's good to have friends that will remind you of what your goals once were and will challenge you to question if your new goals are realistic and are really what you should be striving for....