Friends with Benefits: The New Measure of Wealth

Do you have any friends with benefits?

Forty years is a long time. Last weekend I gathered in a room with my college classmates from the class of 1976. We had a great time remembering the past.

I’d been asked to speak to the group on the subject of what our college meant to me. I started with a confession: “For me it wasn’t about education.” Everyone laughed. They knew the truth of that statement! I clarified the comment by adding: instead of education, I focused on connection. During those college years I developed deep friendships which remain strong. Those friendships have benefited me many times.

Years ago, the definition of being rich meant having lots of money. But that idea changed. The definition of a rich person transformed into one who had lots of free time. In recent years, the concept of what it means to be rich changed again. The new currency of the rich is connectedness.

Friends with benefits is the new measure of wealth.

The older I become the more I value my friendships. But not all friends are created equal. There are friends who suck you dry. These friends do more harm than good. A good strategy is to avoid them and stay close to those friends with benefits.

What are friends with benefits? They are friends who improve your quality of life. They make life interesting and put a smile on your face. Real friends pick you up when you are down. And if you need to be told the ugly truth they are the ones who will do it.

As the years go by it’s easy to lose contact with your real friends. But, at my reunion last weekend, I got the message loud and clear: stay connected. Don’t let a real friendship slide into a black hole. Friends with benefits are far too valuable to let them slip through your fingers.

The older I become the more I realize the true value of friends. Money is great but give me true friends. Free time is cool, but I need genuine friends in my life. Such friends bring benefits into your life which help make this part of life the best part of the journey.

Do you have a real friend with whom you need to reconnect? How will you reach out to a lost friend with benefit?