Hobbies, and Expanding Our Lives

"God doesn't think of us as atoms. He thinks of us as who we are, not what we're made of. That's why we believe. That's why the narrow gate." - Sister Andrea, "Evil"

I randomly came across some great advice a few weeks, that has really stuck in my head. I don’t remember where, I don’t remember who it was - I don’t think I even read the entire piece containing the advice.

The writer was talking about the (what feels to me, recent) trend of “friend breakups”. Reddit’s AITA thread, advice columns, etc - “should I break up with this friend?” feels like a prominent, common question. This writer had an interesting solution to the problem of fraught and complex relationships. They said that if you find yourself unfilled and unsatisfied by your friends, the answer wasn’t to dump them, or tell them to “do better” - the answer was to make more friends. Not replace your friend circle - add to it.

I haven’t been to a Girl Scouts’ meeting in 30 years, I still know this song.

This has stuck in the back of my brain like gum on my shoe, and the more I think about it, the more thoughtful and wide-ranging I realize this advice is.

To be clear, I am not talking about re…