In adolescence, it’s natural to outgrow your shoes. In middlescence, it’s natural to outgrow your friends. Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s comfortable.
Recently, an MEA alum who was glowing after her third workshop said the four words that are the title of today’s post. She sounded both resigned and frustrated. She’d tried posing some of the provocative, life-altering questions we ask in an MEA workshop, but they landed like a big THUD amongst her friends and family. She assumed that the problem was her community, but it might be the context.
We don’t convene MEA workshops in a Marriott ballroom, do we? And, we do a lot of prep work in the first 24 hours of a workshop creating the conditions for people to feel comfortable becoming vulnerable. Similarly, don’t expect that asking a question like this on the fly will elicit anything other than a blank stare, “Ten years from now, what will you regret if you don’t learn it or do it now?” This isn’t the kind of question you ask during your routine, brisk morning walk with your best friend, unless the two of you have built a friendship of intimacy and curiosity.
In sum, maybe you haven’t outgrown your friends, but you’ve instead outgrown the kinds of conversations you have with your friends. No more small talk. It’s time for BIG talk…deep talk. At the heart of a well-examined life and a well-connected friendship is a question, not an answer. Give your friends (or spouse) a chance, but make sure you’re bringing up these questions in a context that allows confidentiality, enough time to go deep, and some preparatory chats that help set the table for a feast of a conversation.
As I learned in church long ago, “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other one is gold.”
If this is an interesting topic for you, you might check out poet Mark Nepo’s workshop “The Power of Friendship” in Baja in mid-February.
-Chip