Are you keeping track of your friendships through Facebook? Truth is that it’s sometimes just tidier and more efficient to send out a quick electronically message, eliminating the need for conversation. We are so used to multitasking that dealing with just one person at a time seems like a waste of time, a guilty pleasure that we don’t have time for.

But there’s a cost to not spending “face to face” time with our friends. How can we express our deepest sorrows, hurts and losses online? An online friendship is a friendship but by its nature it cannot be a real deep one. So much of what we feel is revealed in the way our actions and tone of voice show our feelings.

We feel that we must fill our lives with more, always more. We convince ourselves that we really don’t have time to spend “face to face” but the truth is, we do have time if we want to take it. We all have busy, hectic lives filled with people we don’t want to see and who don’t want to see us. Take time for the friends that you value and don’t try to be everything to everyone. We need to make our friendships a priority because when we are together we share and listen with not only our ears but also our hearts.

Last night I watched an excellent TED talk called "What makes a good life?" by Robert Waldinger.   It is about a 75 year old study on happiness and it concludes that it's not success, money or fame that creates a fulfilling, long life  -  it's "face to face" friendships. 

Here is the link so you can watch it:  TED TALK - Robert Waldinger on happiness