commitment

Loyalty - The Essential Ingredient

• Those who are rich in their friendships seem to be those who believe in lifelong relationships, who stay with their companions through thick and thin, who weather the dry spells.
• There are people who are chronic failures at all their intimate relations and who are always on the move - lurching from one marriage to the next, from one friendship and into another, thinking all the time that the trouble has been with their friends. They suppose that their hope for happiness lies in finding better people somewhere in the world. Often estranged from their relatives, they also carry on feuds with their neighbours and coworkers. But sooner or later, you must learn to hang on when the going is tough.
• In any permanent relationship, there are going to be periods when your friend is not functioning well and consequently the friendship is not functioning well. The test is whether you can stay and wait.
• others have periods when they need the support and guidance or people who love them.
• The demand for complete reciprocity all the time can hurt a friendship.
• in all relationships there is a movement. It is like a dance - at times moving toward each other, and at times apart. The secure friend does not panic during a phase of withdrawal.
• most fulfilled people do not have to shove and push. They do not worry about intimidating others; they have a certain confidence that comes from giving to others.

Rejection and Its Aftermaths

• To succeed at intimate relationships, you need a certain freedom to fail.
• Most experts at friendships have gone through a few ruptured relationships that remained broken, and they realize that it will happen again. They do their best to prevent it, and to provide good maintenance for their current friendships and family connections, but if something goes wrong, they do not automatically assume that something is wrong with them.
• Friendships, like plants, can die natural deaths. People move away from others in interests and inclinations.
• Lifelong relationships may be wonderful, but they are quite rare.
• When we have had a good friendship for a few months or a few years, we can be grateful for the time we had together rather than lamenting that it did not last forever.
• The mark of success - ability to handle rejection
• If they are cowed by failure with a few customers, they'll never hit the big time. But if they can endure rejection and keep trying, confident that they will eventually find a customer where everything clicks, there's no stopping those kind of people.
• the inescapable fact is that not everyone will like you. When they do not, it is not necessarily a reflection on you. The chemistry simply is not right.
• "A man, sir, must keep his friendships in constant repair. If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone."

--- quoted from "The Friendship Factor" by Alan Loy Mcginnis.