Friendship and Goodwill

Ok – it's the end of Friday and I have come painfully close to missing this deadline to do my blog today.

The week has been a full one; an election here at the beach, meetings with clients, networking events and then more meetings to initiate a plan to move a vision forward for our community here. These are the tangible bits and pieces of my week.

What is really happening though is that relationships are being built or being broken based on some intangible essential ingredient called 'good will.' We either have goodwill for each other – and therefore a friendship – a trust and a bond that allows us to work together- or we don't.

I treasure my friends and I am currently mourning a friend who has meant a lot to me. Now, it needs to be understood that this friend is far from perfect – in fact, she can be very annoying. But that is the true gift and privilege of friendship – it allows us to be who we really are – warts and all – and to feel loved and accepted exactly as we are.

If there is enough goodwill in a relationship, then it is possible to overcome the inevitable glitch – the annoyances, the fights, the disagreements and the tears. If there isn't, then nothing will resolve the differences.

We need to come together in friendship now more than ever. Goodwill is in short supply in many parts of the world; maintaining it in our own world is extremely important.

The words of Randy Revel – founder of Context Associated – ring in my ears often and never more often than now – he believed that we needed 'to strengthen the fabric of goodwill that exists in the world.' This was an idea that I bought into over 26 years ago and I continue to buy into it today. It is a simple but very important idea – an idea whose time has finally come.

Friendship equals goodwill.