“You just call out my name and you know, wherever I am I’ll come runnin’ to see you again …

Winter, spring, summer, or fall, all you have to do is call, and I’ll be there … you’ve got a friend …” ~ Carole King

Friendship, a near-universal element of the human condition. Who of us is friendless? Who of us doesn’t need or want friends? Friends are an integral aspect of the fabric of life. Life is better with them than without them. Friends add depth, dimension, emotional connection, safety, and joy to our day-to-day lives. And yet — who of us doesn’t at some point take our friends for granted?

Friends can be relationships of choice. Most of the time, these choices are mutual and beneficial. Lately, we have been faced with every manner of vexing challenges that have stood as obstacles to developing and maintaining our friendships, including COVID (isolation, distancing, illness, death), war, environmental degradation and crises, politics, workaholism, and breakdowns in our social and civic structures, among others.

The choices we make as to who our friends will be are sacrosanct. We hold the gold we seek in others. Our choice of friends helps to manifest and burnish this gold within. People whom we seek out as friends generally have values that are aligned with our own. Friends are gifts that have the potential to keep on giving — and receiving. At moments, there is no one and nothing more important than having a friend, whether they are friends for life or otherwise.

Change is essential in life. We cannot control the changes that happen to ourselves, to others, and to the world writ large. What we can determine and regulate is our attitude toward all the changes that come our way. Friends serve as solid supports to help us to better understand and adapt to change, to move forward in our lives through change, and to comport ourselves with dignity and integrity as we face change.

Our friends and friendships change as we do. I see friendship as being like a rubber band. Friendships can stretch and contract, change shape and form, remain smooth or become brittle, or even snap for hundreds of different reasons. When I hear expressions like “friends for life” or “best friend/s forever” or ”besties,” I know there is closeness and intimacy between people. In a life where change is one of the few permanent givens, a steady friend helps to create continuity and connection through all of life’s vicissitudes.

In our world, humans are used to measuring and quantifying things as much as possible. But how does one go about measuring a friendship? To me, it is the quality, not the quantity, that matters. One way to better understand this is to think about the fact that one feels the depth of friendship not only when things are well and good, but especially when there are the inevitable bumps in the road, the small hiccups we all experience in virtually every relationship. The “measure” of a friendship can be experienced when two friends demonstrate that they can and will do the work necessary to move through the tough moments of disagreement, misunderstanding, and conflict.

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Friendship is about many things: sharing, growing, healing, playing, working, reflecting — and so much more. What makes a friendship a particularly unique form of human relationship is that it is self-selected, and that it has the potential to bring two or more people ever closer together. This closeness, on whatever level, enables intimacy — or, as I like to think of this word, as a process of “into me, you see.” One of the most important factors friends share with each other is trust. We usually feel safe with our friends. This safety comes from being able to be vulnerable with a friend and know that goodness will come from our sharing our vulnerability. Trust is earned over time and catalyzed by each partner demonstrating consistency in their care for one another.

I associate words like journey, exploration, compassion, resiliency, curiosity, creativity, and commitment with friendship. Building and sustaining our friendship circles is a real accomplishment that is worth marking over the course of our lives. Evolving opportunities to deepen our friendships makes life more meaningful and precious. As with so much else, practicing the skills of befriending others builds strength within each of us. And this strength may then be translated to building families, neighborhoods, and communities. There is always space to grow within ourselves, and with others. As we move now into a new school year, and ever closer to our next national elections, can we consider prioritizing making new and refining continuing friendships?

I’ll have more to share, and hear, at my upcoming book presentation at the Greenfield Public Library on Tuesday, Sept. 10th, from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m. Come be a part of this shared experience with me; it’s all about Reflections on the Nature of Friendship.

Daniel Cantor Yalowitz writes a regular column in the Recorder. A developmental and intercultural psychologist, he has facilitated change in many organizations and communities around the world. His two most recent books are “Journeying with Your Archetypes” and “Reflections on the Nature of Friendship.” Reach out to him at danielcyalowitz@gmail.com.