who’s in your boat
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“You can’t soar with the eagles if you’re running with the turkeys, so choose your friends wisely. If you keep company with wise friends, you’re going to become wise.” ~Rick Warren
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If I have learned anything in my 56 years of life, I have learned the value of surrounding myself with healthy friendships, and the truth in the old saying, we become like the company we keep.
I have also learned that we are not wired for thousands and thousands of friends as our social media driven world would have us believe that we are, and that in truth, many of us appear to have a plethora of friends and yet we are lonelier than ever.
Social media friends and friendships are not real relationships, and they leave us feeling less than and lonely because they do not require the investment from either party, that real live personal relationships require.
According to data from the General Social Survey (GSS):
The number of Americans who say they have no close friends has roughly tripled in recent decades. “Zero” is also the most common response when people are asked how many close confidants they have. Adult men seem to be especially bad at keeping and cultivating friendships.
This may seem strange in the era of Facebook, Twitter, and our numerous social media options, but the “friends” in your digital galaxy aren’t the ones that matter when it comes to your health and happiness.”
Being the introspective, proverbially inquisitive person that I am, I am constantly challenging the idea that we are wired for or meant to know so much about so many. I wonder just how many people we can actually maintain any real sense of relationship with before it’s simply interacting with and not really engaging with in a relationship?
The following is from, BBC.com: dunbars-number-why-we-can-only-maintain-150-relationships :
“There are well-defined limits to the number of friends and acquaintances the average person can retain. But the question about whether these limits are the same in today’s digital world – one in which it’s common to have social media profiles, or online forums, with thousands of followers – is more complicated.
According to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, the “magic number” is 150. Dunbar became convinced that there was a ratio between brain sizes and group sizes through his studies of non-human primates. This ratio was mapped out using neuroimaging and observation of time spent on grooming, an important social behavior of primates. Dunbar concluded that the size, relative to the body, of the neocortex – the part of the brain associated with cognition and language – is linked to the size of a cohesive social group. This ratio limits how much complexity a social system can handle.
Dunbar and his colleagues applied this basic principle to humans, examining historical, anthropological, and contemporary psychological data about group sizes, including how big groups get before they split off or collapse. They found remarkable consistency around the number 150.
According to Dunbar and many researchers he influenced, this rule of 150 remains true for early hunter-gatherer societies as well as a surprising array of modern groupings: offices, communes, factories, residential campsites, military organizations, 11th Century English villages, even Christmas card lists. Exceed 150, and a network is unlikely to last long or cohere well.
But 150 alone doesn’t tell the whole story. Other numbers are nested within the social brain hypothesis too.
According to the theory, the tightest circle has just five people – loved ones. That’s followed by successive layers of 15 (good friends), 50 (friends), 150 (meaningful contacts), 500 (acquaintances) and 1500 (people you can recognise). People migrate in and out of these layers, but the idea is that space has to be carved out for any new entrants.
Of course, all of these numbers really represent range. Extroverts tend to have a larger network and spread themselves more thinly across their friends, while introverts concentrate on a smaller pool of “thick” contacts. And women generally have slightly more contacts within the closest layers.
“What determines these layers in real life, in the face-to-face world… is the frequency at which you see people,” says Dunbar. “You’re having to make a decision every day about how you invest what time you have available for social interaction, and that’s limited.”
I am not here to say that Dunbar is 100% accurate, but the Dunbar study is used and quoted all throughout research on our capacity for relationships. Personally, I find it makes sense in my life to some degree, (albeit not 100%) when I really analyze the capacity I have to maintain intimate, deep, and authentic relationships.
Intimate, deep, and authentic relationships are the relationships we need in our lives. They are what’s real. Those are the friends that will sustain us in time of need, build us up when we are broken, love us in spite of ourselves, and guide us back when we are drifting off track.
That being said, we are not capable of sustaining, maintaining, or experiencing true friendship intimacy with a group the size of our social media followers, and sadly, this is where many are seeking those bonds of friendship.
I have said many times, throughout many of my blogs that we are wired for community, and we are.
Scripture reminds us over and over of this.
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!”
(Ecclesiastes 4:8-1)
“As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” (Proverbs 27:17)
That being said, knowing our limited capacity for authentic relationships, and the importance of who is influencing our lives, I want to make certain the people in my boat are ones who impact my life in the most positive of ways.
You might be wondering, why do I use the boat reference for this analogy?
Sailboats symbolize journey and adventure. They are carried by the wind and its momentum is gained through the breath, or wind in its sails.
A boat is something that stays afloat, or sinks. How the boat is maintained affects its ability to sink or float. What I put in the boat impacts its buoyancy, or its resilience, and the people in the boat play an important role in the direction of the boat, where it goes, and how it navigates the storms.
Life is very similar to a boat. Our lives are a journey and an adventure. We never know what each day will bring or where the journey may take us. In life, those we surround ourselves with will either breathe life into us or suck the wind right out of our sails.
In life we either sink or swim. We are always making decisions to keep moving forward, to pivot, or to quit, and who we have in our boat will either take us down or help us rise above the waves and stay afloat.
Do our friends build us up or tear us down?
photo credit: Omar Lopez @omarlopez1
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…even one very good friend can improve your life in profound ways.
–Dr. Mark Vernon
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Who is in your boat?
When the storms of life are tossing us around, can we count on them to help anchor us in truth, help navigate us to safety, or will they drag us down and try to lead us astray/off course?
Here are EIGHT characteristics of people I have found critical to have in my boat.
These are the kind of people (friends & family) I feel blessed and grateful to have in my life, and, if considering Dunbar’s theory, these are the friends and family that represent part of my tightest circle– loved ones, followed by successive layers of good friends, friends, and meaningful contacts.
1. People who share hope in the gospel. These are the people who desire God’s will for you and for their own lives. They will stand for you when you are too weak or exhausted to stand. People who will encourage you through faith, hope, and with love because we are bound together as family through Jesus.
2. People with realistic expectations who can forgive. We are a continual work in progress. We all mess up and need grace and forgiveness. These are friends who understand this truth and lovingly hold one another accountable, but don’t walk away.
3. People who love sacrificially. These are friends and family who love and serve one another without expectations.
4. People who accept unconditionally. The best of friendships are with brothers and sisters who know and accept our weaknesses and imperfections. They don’t hold on to bitterness, nor are they easily offended.
5. People who are trustworthy. Christian friends have a unique calling to discretion when trusted with intimate personal details. Gossip is destructive and sinful, and Christian friends should have confidence that their private struggles are treated with respect and confidentiality.
6. People who are generous. These are friends and family who will gladly provide a hand up, no shame or guilt attached, in your time of need. Often, they will do so before you even have to ask.
7. People with wise counsel and encouragement. A Christian friend will not counsel you to give up that to which the Lord is asking you to hold fast. The world may counsel you to look to your heart for guidance. But a Christian friend should stand with you side by side, pointing you to the truth of the gospel.
8. People who speak truth in love. These are friends/family who will catch you when you sin, remind you of your calling to repent and sin no more, and gently restore you with the grace purchased at the cross.
Looking at these characteristics you can see it would be next to impossible to have close, intimate relationships with hundreds or thousands of people at this level, but this is the level of friendship that edifies our soul and sustains us as we navigate the rough seas of life.
It seems to me, our world is trying to push a narrative that simply is not sustainable, nor will it truly build the community Christ desires for us.
I found the best way to wrap this all up is by paraphrasing the ending of a post I read by a writer and theologian, Neal Hardin:
True friendship is not measured in the quantity of friends that you have but in their quality. In the Bible, a close friend is described as someone “who is as your own soul.”
It is important to mention as one word of caution, the Bible does point us towards community and the importance and value of friendships with other people, but it’s imperative to remember, those friendships are no substitute for friendship with God.
We must be intentional not to make an idol out of our friends and do not look to them to meet needs that only God can.
Nothing can take the place of relational intimacy with God himself, not friendship, not marriage, not any relationship.
NOTHING can ever satisfy the deepest longings of our heart that only God is meant to fulfill.
A better friendship with God will help you to be a better friend to others and having better friendships will help you draw closer to God. These friends can pray with you, speak truth into your life, bear your burdens, and rejoice when you rejoice. Through Christ, friendship with God and friendship with others work in tandem.
We were made to love and be loved
But the price this world demands
Will cost you far too much
Spent so many lonely years just tryin' to fit in
Now I've found my place
In this circle of friends
In a circle of friends
We have one Father
In a circle of friends
We share this prayer
That every orphan soul will know
And all will enter in
To the shelter of this circle of friends
If you weep, I will weep with you
If you sing for joy the rest of us
Will lift our voices too
But no matter what you feel inside
There's no need to pretend
That's that way it is in this circle of friends
In a circle of friends
We have one Father
In a circle of friends
We share this prayer
That we'll gather together
No matter how the highway bends
I will not lose this circle of friends
Among the nations, tribes, and tongues
We have sisters and brothers
And when we meet in Heaven
We will recognize each other
With joy so deep (joy so deep)
And love so sweet (love so sweet)
We'll celebrate these friends
And life that never ends
In a circle of friends
We have one Father
In a circle of friends
We share this prayer
That it will not be long
Before all will enter in
To the shelter of this circle of friends
That it will not be long
Before all will enter in
To the shelter of this circle of friends
Portions of this blog are paraphrased from the following: (12-characteristics-of-christian-friendship) (christian-friends)
