Anybody can be your Facebook friend.  You know, somebody that wants to know what’s going on in your life without really wanting to be an actual part of your life.  But, if you’re going to develop any great friendships, real friendships, lasting friendships, then these five essential characteristics will always come into play.

1.  Loyalty

Loyalty is the first requirement of any great friendship because without it there’s just not enough time to develop any of the other characteristics.  A friend has to be loyal so that the depth of the friendship can have an opportunity to grow.  Great friends stay while others are leaving.

2.  Honesty

A real friend is going to be honest with you.  That means they’ll tell you what’s honestly going on with them as well as telling you what they honestly think about where your life is headed.  We all need friends that will speak the truth to us.  Great friends tell the truth to each other.

3.  Forgiveness

It has been said that good friends are always good forgivers and I couldn’t agree more.  No matter how much you care for each other things are inevitably going to be said or done that need to be forgiven.  Great friends forgive quickly and often.

4.  Vision

A great friend will see potential in you that others can’t or won’t.  They’ll see capabilities in you that you might not even see in yourself and help to push you to do greater things than you ever dreamed you could do.  A great friend will always be a person of vision.

5.  Support

A great friend is going to encourage you when you’re struggling.  Yes, they may have to speak some hard truths to you from time to time but they’re more eager to speak words of support and help.  They’re always there to offer a prayer, and a hand.  Great friends are always great encouragers.

As you can see, a great friend is a real treasure.  Of course, nobody can be a perfect friend but everyone can strive to be a great friend to someone.

Do you have any great friends?  Are you a great friend to anyone?

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BTW, I wrote this article in response to this Sarah Cunningham post.  Better late that never.

When someone is really great at something they tend to make it look effortless.

Whether it’s a magician, a musician, or an electrician, they can make it look so effortless that most people tend to get the impression that it is indeed easy or simple…until they try it themselves.  The truth is that behind most “effortless efforts” there lies a great deal of hard work, perhaps even years of hard work.

Want to make something in your life look effortless?  Start investing time, energy, and, yes, effort today.

English is a living language.  That means that it’s constantly evolving and growing.  New words are added and new phrases get coined every year.

Unfortunately we live in the age of auto correct and spell check.  The second any of us deviates from the prescribed norm we’re reminded with a red underline or a “correct” word suggestion.

The subtle effect of all this is a fostering of a rigid view of language, as well as life.  We become chained to the routine and inevitably fall into ruts since we’ve been trained to immediately self-censor anything new, fresh, or original the instant we create it.

Obviously, I am not suggesting that we need a wave of misspellings to flood our world.  We must, however, allow space for people to create new words, new phrases, and new thoughts.  New things are only discovered or created when we deviate from the known paths.

As this year starts, challenge yourself to ignore your internal spell check and create new things.  Ignore the need to fall into line.  Ignore the little red underline that pops up in your head when you want to take a new path – a path that none of your friends have taken before.

Create something new.  Write.  Dream.  Draw.  Ignore the spell check because it only knows what has been and not what is yet to be.