Soul shards: what do we lose with age? Why we lose friends as we age It is difficult to be a reliable companion.

Time cannot be turned back. An invisible watchmaker is relentlessly counting down one hour after another, heartlessly watching how It would seem that quite recently you were racing with your friends on a bicycle, signaling to curious onlookers, and now, one wave of eyelashes, and you are already following your first. A little more, and it will be replaced by the second, then a cascade of all kinds of memories and ... a fireplace, and you are surrounded by your grandchildren.

Living every new day, a person notices obvious changes within himself. As if he was deprived of something, something very important and irreplaceable. But what then? What do we lose as we age?

Changes within us

What people lose as they age is faith. No, not in God, they believe in him more and more every day, because this can calm them down. No, this is different. Belief in miracles is lost, in the fact that there is a place for magic in the world.

We used to believe in Santa Claus, a good magician and lost treasures. All our dreams were directed far ahead, towards the unknown. But the years passed, and all these fantasies disappeared, and in their place came harsh reality.

This is not to say that this is bad, because this is the only way to survive in our world. Yet the fact remains, belief in miracles is what we lose with age.

The body is the temple of the soul

As soon as ours changes, external changes will not be long in coming. After all, the body is a reflection of the soul.

With age, all our vices break out. Smoking affects the teeth and hair, alcohol on the skin, and non-exit work makes our faces stone, as if they are not at all capable of expressing emotions.

So beauty is something that we lose with age. Although you can keep it for an extremely long time, if you keep it, But this is a completely different conversation.

It's hard to be a reliable companion

Friends are also something that we lose as we age. After all, every year there are fewer and fewer of them. What is the reason for this? Well, here are some answers.

Firstly, quite often life itself interferes with normal relations, scattering comrades in different cities.

Second, the difference in social groups becomes an insurmountable barrier.

And thirdly, our laziness. It is she who becomes the key factor that prevents you from simply calling and asking a friend: "How are you?"

Friendship is a unique relationship because, unlike relationships with relatives, we choose who we do business with. And unlike other voluntary relationships like romance and marriage, friendships don't have a formal structure. You cannot but see and talk with your soulmate for a month, but you can with your friends.

Yet study after study confirms that friends are very important to a person's happiness. And as friendships change over time, so do the person's requirements for their friends.

I have heard people of different ages talk about close friends: a teenager 14 years old and an old man approaching his century. There are three descriptions of close friends: who you can talk to, who you depend on, and who you feel good about. Descriptions do not change throughout life, but the life circumstances in which these qualities are manifested change.
William Rawlins, Ohio University professor

The voluntary nature of friendship makes it defenseless against life's circumstances. Growing up, people do not prioritize friendship: family and work come first. And if earlier you could just run into the next entrance to invite Kolya for a walk, now you agree with him “somehow carve out a couple of hours” to meet and drink beer once a month.

The great thing about friendship is that people remain friends simply because they want to, because they chose each other. But this also prevents you from maintaining friendship for a long time, because you can also voluntarily stop dating without regrets and obligations.

How friendships are changing

As a child, friends are other guys who are fun to play with. Teenagers are already more open to their feelings, support each other. But in adolescence, friends are still only exploring and testing themselves and others, they find out what "close person" means. Friendship helps them in this.

Younger friendships are stronger: all your friends go to the same school or live nearby. Over time, when you leave educational institutions, change jobs or place of residence, connections weaken. Moving to another city to study at a university can be the first experience of parting with friends.

Unlike our partners, work and family, we have no obligations to our friends. We will be sad to move, leaving them, but we will. This is one of the characteristics of friendship.

How friendship fades into the background

When people reach maturity, they have many urgent matters that are more important than meeting friends. It is much easier to postpone or cancel a meeting with a friend than playing with a child or an important business meeting.

The bitter truth is that it was friendship that helped you in your youth to understand who you really are, and now that you have grown up, you do not have time for those people who helped you make important decisions in life.

But the most significant event pushing friendship into the background is, of course, the wedding. There is a grain of irony in this: all friends from both sides are invited to the wedding, this is such a large-scale meeting of friends. And a dramatic goodbye.

An interesting series of friendship interviews taken from middle-aged Americans in 1994. Judgments about "real" friendship were saturated with irony. It turned out that most of the respondents rarely have time to spend it with close friends.

Friends who lived very close to each other noted that it is important to plan time for meetings, to find a place in their schedule. Many also mentioned that they they talk more about the need to meet, and rarely meet in reality.

How the way you make friends is changing

Throughout life, people make and keep friends in many different ways. There are independent people - they make friends wherever they go, and they have more good acquaintances than really close friends.

Others make a couple of best friends and bond with them over the years. This is fraught with some danger, because if such a person loses one of his best friends, it is a real disaster.

The safer way to make friends includes both types: the person has several close friends, but continues to make new ones.

In adulthood, new friends are more likely to be more than just the people you hang out with. For example, they can be your coworkers or the parents of your child's friends. Adults with constant time constraints find it much easier to make friends if there is more than one reason to spend time together. As a result, the ability to make friends just like that can atrophy.

But as the years pass, you don't have much to do, and friendship regains its meaning. You are retiring, your children have grown up and no longer require attention. You have a lot of free time that you have nowhere to spend if you have lost all your friends.

At the end of life, priorities shift again: people prefer to do things that bring pleasure, including socializing with close friends and family.

What Helps Keep Friendship

Whether people stick together as they grow up or drift apart depends on how much they have done to maintain the relationship. During Leadbetter's extensive research, it turned out that the more months best friends spent together in 1983, the more likely they were to still be close in 2002. It means that the more you invest in friendships, the longer you will stay in the relationship.

Another study found that people need to feel like they get as much out of a friendship as they put into it, and how much they give to a friend determines how long the friendship lasts.

Have you ever noticed how annoying it is to chat between two best friends? Years of "their" jokes, stories and incidents make such communication incomprehensible to others. But this special language is part of what makes the friendship last.

In a study of best friends, the future of their relationship could be predicted by how well they play at guessing words, when one talks about a word without naming it, and the other has to guess what the word is.

This communication skill and total understanding help friends successfully go through life changes that can destroy the relationship. True friends do not need to communicate often, it is enough to do it at least sometimes.

Don't touch memories

In adulthood, we accumulate a lot of friends from different fields: from different jobs, from different cities, people who have never even heard of each other. During this time, friendships can be divided into three categories: active, in sleep mode, and in flashback.

Active friendship- this is when you meet often, at any time you can call and talk to this person, get emotional relaxation and support. You know a lot about human life and it doesn't seem strange.
Frozen friendship or friendship in sleep mode - this is when you practically do not communicate with a person, but think of him as a friend. If you meet by chance, for example, you come to the city where this person lives, you will definitely meet and talk heart to heart for a long time.
Friendship in memories- this is when you do not communicate with a person at all, but remember him. At one time, communication with him was very close and friendship gave you a lot. Therefore, you periodically remember him and still consider him a friend.

Social networks make it possible to keep “friends in memory” in plain sight at all times. This is the summer camp friend effect. As close as you are at camp, you will not be able to maintain a friendship when you get home and go to school.

You are at summer camp and you are at school are two different people, and trying to maintain relationships online will only spoil the magical memories of summer and great friendships.

Circumstances and politeness are the main enemies of friendship.

Friendship is very sensitive to circumstances. Think of all the things we have to do: work, caring for children and elderly parents ... Friends can take care of themselves, so we can take them out of a busy schedule.

When youth gives way to maturity, the main reasons for ending a friendship are life circumstances and politeness.

A study by Emily Langan, a professor of social interaction at Wheaton College, found that adults feel they should be more polite to their friends.

Adults understand that friends have their own things to do and they cannot demand from them a lot of time or attention to their person. Unfortunately, this happens on both sides, and people start to distance themselves from each other, even if they don't want to. Just because of his politeness.

But what makes friendships fragile also makes them flexible. Participants in one of the surveys most often thought that the relationship did not end, even if there was a long period when friends did not communicate.

This is a very optimistic view. You will not think that you have a normal relationship with your parents if you have not heard anything about them for several months. But it works with friends: you can be considered friends even if you haven't spoken for six months.

Yes, it's sad that we stop relying on friends when we grow up, but it gives us the opportunity to experience a different kind of relationship based on understanding the limitations of adulthood. This relationship is far from ideal, but it is real.

After all, friendship is a relationship without any commitment. You yourself decided to associate yourself with a person, just to be together.

While most readers are stuck between ages, when they really want to grow up and do not want to grow old at all, we will talk about the main quirks of maturity. The older you get, the more you resemble an ossified corpse, piously confident in its wisdom. Such characters raise doubts about the common axiom "Old age must be respected." There is little wisdom in old age, mostly insanity. But there are, of course, exceptions. It is to them that you need to strive. For those who have turned into ossified mutants, reading the article is useless, but for the rest it is as a warning.

Ease of lifting

It turns out that meeting friends takes a lot of effort. If in adolescence and youth meetings with friends happen somehow by themselves, now, for the sake of gatherings with an old friend, you need to perform 12 feats: defeat the hydra, deal with business, knock out time in your busy schedule, if necessary, then slightly adjust plans , and most importantly - to defeat your laziness. No, you didn’t start to love your friends less, it’s just that life is too worn out, there is no strength left. But such meetings allow you to feel that you are still alive, and have not turned into a rotten ruin. But if you start to find time in your schedule again, this feeling will not leave you.

Attitude towards life with humor, without hypocrisy

How serious all around, my God, even with such faces walk, as if in front of their eyes someone copulates a wormhole. What's with these people? What about those inveterate, adored by all bastards, who once did not disdain vulgar jokes and did not twist their mum when they heard natural things tabooed by society? What? Have matured? this is not matured, this is hypocrisy. It is these people who prohibit films, cartoons and support the idea of creating their own Internet.

But much nicer are those people who, even in adulthood, are not afraid to build an easy fool, to support any topics and do not pretend to be pious elders, talking about the natural. In the end, all the most idiotic things are done with a serious expression.

The pleasures of life

Perhaps this point will seem controversial to someone. It is likely, because it directly depends on the financial situation. However, if a person has money for a computer, to pay for utilities and to understand our articles, then he has brains. In any case, there should be. And that means extra money.

Of course, everyday life and family shackle us, breadwinners, hand and foot, and make us look to the future. Living under the motto of hedonism, as before, will not work, because the mother with the folder is no longer sponsored, and the needs have grown several times.

But as one very wise woman used to say, why save for a rainy day, if that day may never come, and meanwhile life passes by? And it is not clear why he saved up, why he lived. It is necessary, nevertheless, it is necessary to spend time, money and energy on pleasure, you need to indulge your egoism. From time to time, you just need to live one day, otherwise there is an opportunity to go crazy.

Friendship with people, not status

There is a widespread belief that a person is made by his environment. You can't argue with that. But over time, it mutated into a completely ugly rule: if there are losers in your circle of friends, then you yourself should be a loser. Those who have screwed up everything in their lives justify their failure with this saying as well. Well, mostly it is used, which cannot be called crap, but they could not climb to the top of the world. And they could not in many respects because they have a lot of show-off, and very little human. Such friendship for the sake of profit, friendship with those with whom it is necessary, is not friendship. Therefore, over time, a person begins to feel lonely, although there are a lot of people around. In addition, friendship motivates a person, develops him, allows him to look at the world more soberly, even if the comrade, to put it mildly, is poorer and more useless. And so you lock yourself in one state, and sour. Losers don't make you worse, you're just shit.

Riskiness and maximalism

Humanity was ruined by the holy faith in the expression "Everything that happens - everything is for the best." It has many analogs, since resigning is the easiest way to continue to exist. Like, if something happened, then why rock the boat. For many, going against fate is a clear manifestation of youthful maximalism. In any case, this is the opinion of those who are trying to adapt to the situation, and not change the situation around them. Such people from the outside resemble dried vegetables, completely devoid of strength and desire to do anything. Once in their youth, they knew how to take risks, perly on the barricades and fought with a lion's roar for a place in the sun. Now they are too lazy, they are tired, they assure that they have something to risk. Although an apartment on a mortgage and a dreary life due to circumstances is not the best alternative.

Finding yourself

This point follows in many respects from the previous one. The person became afraid to take risks, to undertake anything, he had already resigned himself to everything, and therefore it seems to him that the time to fulfill dreams and discover something new for himself has sunk into oblivion. This was relevant in his youth, and now it resembles a mockery of his dreams. In truth, this kind of humility is more like self-mockery. nothing stopped me from becoming a TV journalist by the age of 50. The man was looking for himself and at the same time managed to make money. For some reason, he had enough energy and understanding. Others, alas, fail. They do not realize that sometimes the search for oneself takes decades, they firmly believe that they need to try themselves in different guises at the age of 20, approximately when they stopped doing it.

Listening to others

But the reason why it is completely useless for mature people, that is, the main characters of this article, to read it. As you get older, you begin to consider yourself too wise and experienced (experienced failure) to follow someone's advice and listen to someone. Especially if this someone is younger than you. Although a disdain for youth is constantly observed, and even young people do not always listen to advice. But these are just idiots. A normal person will always listen to several opinions and advice, analyze them and then decide how to deal with this knowledge base. It is especially recommended to listen to those who have achieved more, like you are now listening with your mouth open,. Because it's never too late to change your life.

Friendship is voluntary. And this is her weakness

In the hierarchy of relationships, friendship is in last place. Relationships with lovers, parents, children - all this is above friendship. This is true for life and is reflected in science: research on interpersonal relationships mainly concerns couples and families in love.

Friendship is a unique relationship because, unlike relationships with relatives, we choose who we do business with. And unlike other voluntary relationships like marriage, friendship has no formal structure. You cannot but see and talk with your soulmate for a month, but you can with your friends.

Yet study after study confirms that friends are very important to humans. And as friendships change over time, so do the person's requirements for their friends.

I have heard people of different ages talk about close friends: a teenager 14 years old and an old man approaching his century. There are three descriptions of close friends: who you can talk to, who you depend on, and who you feel good about. Descriptions do not change throughout life, but the life circumstances in which these qualities are manifested change.
William Rawlins, professor at Ohio University

The voluntary nature of friendship makes it defenseless against life's circumstances. Growing up, people prioritize not in favor of friendship: family comes first. And if earlier you could just run into the next entrance to invite Kolya for a walk, now you agree with him “somehow carve out a couple of hours” to meet and have a drink once a month.

Throughout life - from kindergarten to nursing home - friendship improves a person, both physically and mentally. But as they grow up, people change their priorities, and friendships change - for better or for worse. The latter, unfortunately, happens much more often.

How friendships are changing

Youth is the best time to build friendships. It is during this time that the friendship becomes more complete and meaningful.

As a child, friends are other guys who are fun to play with. already more open their feelings, support each other. But in adolescence, friends are still only exploring and testing themselves and others, they find out what “close person” means. Friendship helps them in this.

Corey Balazowich / Flickr.com

Over time, moving from youth to youth, people become more self-confident, they look for people who share their views on important things.

Despite the new, more complex approach to friendship, young people still have plenty of time to devote to friends. Young people mostly spend 10 to 25 hours a week meeting with friends. And a recent study found that in the United States, boys and girls aged 20-24 spend most of their day interacting with groups of people of all ages.

At universities, everything is aimed at communication between students - at lectures and between them, at holidays with fellow students, at seminars, and so on. Of course, this applies not only to those who attend university. All young people tend to avoid things that distract from their interactions with friends, such as weddings or talking to their parents.

A study by Emily Langan, professor of social interaction at Wheaton College, found that adults feel they should be more polite to their friends.

But what makes friendships fragile also makes them flexible. Participants in one of the polls most often thought that the relationship did not end, even if there was a long period when friends did not communicate.

After all, friendship is a relationship without any commitment. You yourself decided to associate yourself with a person, just to be together.

What about you? Do you still have real friends?