With Purpose Success, part 61

Why is that? Harvard author and professor of public policy Robert Putnam documents this in his landmark book Bowling Alone, where he explains fifty years of growing isolation as the product of the mass penetration of TV sets into households followed by newer technologies like the personal computer and Internet. Putnam argues that we are so distracted by technology and life in general that we do not take the time to search for true friendship or nurture it where it has taken root. In our increasingly isolated world, the notion of friendship has become watered down. 

You may have folks to shop with and to exercise with. You have fishing pals, and hang out with people at work. But few of these relationships rise to the level of genuine friendship-people to whom you can bare your soul and without whom your life would be significantly less full. 

These kinds of relationships-whether there are two or ten-deserve your focus. "Companionship is only the matrix of friendship," wrote C. 

S. Lewis. "It is often called friendship, and many people when they speak of their friends mean only their companions. But this is not friendship in the sense I give to the word." 

Nurturing new relationships is especially critical as adults. Eventually your parents, your partner and your siblings and other relatives may move on or pass away. Close friends can replace them in your life. In any event, good friends fill most of your emotional needs and can contribute to your sense of meaning. Hindu teachings say that friendship provides fulfillment in such psychologically critical areas as affection, romance, brotherhood, protection, guidance, and intimacy. Marlene Rosenkoetter, dean of the school of nursing at the Medical College of Georgia, identifies these virtues of friendship as well: playing a role in someone's life, feeling loved, feeling good about yourself, and having a support group. 

We're moving into a world where friendship networks, which are not necessarily easy or natural for us to form, are of utmost importance. In earlier days you didn't really need to know how to make friends. You simply had them. They lived near you, sat next to you in church, or worked with you. You didn't often pick up stakes and move; so you naturally bonded with folks in the community over the common interests that put you near one another in the first place. The idea of someone, at age sixty-three, walking up to someone in an art class and saying, "Hi, my name is Claudia. What's yours?" and trying to jump-start a friendship that way is kind of new. But it's increasingly common and important.