Miki’s Rules To Live By: Choice of Friends
by Miki Saxon
Last year I shared a couple of pretty good Rules at the start of the holiday season.
This year I have another that may ease some of your holiday stress.
Ethel Watts Mumford said, “God gave us our relatives; thank God we can choose our friends.”
The first part is the root of stress for those people who believe that family should be a constant source of all things good. They twist themselves into pretzels to effect that outcome and tear apart their psyches when it doesn’t materialize.
Worse, they completely ignore the second part of the quote, thus losing the sweet solace of good friendships.
Hugh Kingsmill, a contemporary of Mumford, provided the corollary that many need to let go of the stress of missed expectations and embrace the solution.
Friends are God’s apology for relatives.
Enjoy your friends this holiday season and all year ‘round and, if you are lucky, those relatives who also qualify as friends.
Image credit: briiiiiiiiin
