Travel Thoughts

The past two weeks I’ve been traveling through a majority of the Midwest visiting friends and family along the way.

Sidenote: I highly recommend that everyone take a roadtrip similar to this at some point in your life. Not only do you get to spend time with people you love in their most comfortable environment (which is really quite interesting if I do say so myself), but you also get free room and board.

Anyway.

I had plenty of driving time (nearly 2000 miles worth) which meant plenty of thinking time. This thinking revolved a lot around relationships but primarily friendships and the selfishness I have within my own friendships.

Here are some examples:

I expect others to initiate communication. And when they don’t I can grow bitter and even angry. I tell myself that they know I don’t like initiating phone calls so they should make the effort to do that themselves.

Or I’ll have that friendship where the other person really needs me around as someone to build them up and I’ll close myself off too them because I don’t want them to become too clingy or I don’t want to feel like I’m being used.

Or I’ll make promises to friends about staying in touch and instead I’ll become too busy and “forget” to follow through.

So yes, I’m selfish.

I read Donald Miller’s book Through Painted Deserts during one stop of my trip and it got me to thinking that friendships and relationships in general need to be less about ME and more about YOU. What can I give YOU in this relationship? How can I go out of my way to show YOU that I care? How can I show YOU that YOUR friendship is important to me? Do YOU need encouragement? Have I been neglecting YOU? Have I called YOU recently?

Relationships should never be just about me. They should never be about my convenience. They should never be about my selfishness. And that is something I need to work on.