A Psychological Look at Friendships and How We Choose Our Friends

• How do YOU chose your friends?
• What is the criteria for you?
• Who do you exclude?
• Can you ever have too many friends?

Friendship is a wonderful relationship. It can be enlightening, provide companionship, ward off loneliness, or it can be detrimental to your health and well being.

What is friendship anyway? Is it just an intangible attachment between two or more people bound by affection or esteem?

The dictionary says a friend is simply being one of the same party, nation, or group.

These definitions may be true, but there is certainly more to friendship than just a familial connection. And conversely, not all members of any group are compatible, or friends.

So, just what is it that binds two, or more, people together?

The average basic essentials are ''likenesses'', or "similarities" in some form. Whether it is physical, emotional, spiritual, or some other commonality that is shared.

We start off in life liking everyone we meet, unless we are told by our parents that certain people cannot be trusted, are not nice people, or are evil by their very nature; or until someone harms us in some way. But who makes that determination and why?

Most of us accept the people around us in close proximity as friendly; until one of them does, or says something, that is hurtful to us. Then that 'friendship' is lost.

What a "friend" is, or should be:

kind, considerate, polite, tolerant, caring, generous, pleasant to be around, faithful, agreeable, supportive, accepting of our shortcomings, protective, honest, trustworthy and truthful.

Obviously none of these traits apply to either political party and most religious affiliations. They are reserved for individuals around us.

If accepting diversity was not part of a friendship requirement, this would be a pretty dull and boring world. I cannot imagine having only those who look, and think, exactly like me around me all the time.

That is, of course, unless one thinks they are the center of all there is; then in that case i doubt there would be many folks who would actually want to be around you.

Some people actually think that the wealthy in this country are our friends and benefactors, and they know what is best for the people in general. That could not be farther from the truth. Consider the following and decide if you truly believe such of the wealthy:

"As you no doubt know, Charles and David Koch are right-wing extremists who already exercise enormous economic and political power in our country.

As a family worth some $50 billion dollars they have reportedly spent at least $400 million attempting to influence the 2012 national elections. They have also established and funded dozens of organizations that actively support the privatization of Social Security, massive cuts in programs for working families, attacks on workers' rights, more tax breaks for billionaires and large corporations and other causes benefiting the rich and powerful.

As the owners of a major fossil fuel company, they have also been leaders in providing substantial funding for organizations that spread misinformation about the reality of global warming -- a growing crisis which threatens our entire planet." (as reported by truthout.org)

Too much power resting in too few hands is not what America is supposed to be about. We should all be deeply concerned that one extremely wealthy family, because of an absurd Supreme Court decision, is able to have enormous influence over our political life and elections. We must all be unalterably opposed to that same family expanding its power by controlling the news and information that millions of Americans receive.

People like this only represent themselves and their own interests, and promote their own narrow minded agendas. this is the gross mentality of all of Corporate America (conglomerations, monopolies, etc..) [note here that this not intended to include small businesses when they first start out.] But, if successful, most of them soon become as greedy and their larger counterparts.

Florida:
The Florida legislature is launching an assault on working families. Some lawmakers want to make it illegal for cities and towns in the state to pass local laws that guarantee workers the right to earn paid sick days.

You read that right: illegal!

Every day, thousands of Floridians are forced to go to work while sick or to take a sick child to school or day care. When employers fail to let workers earn paid sick days, workers are faced with the impossible choice between keeping their jobs and putting food on their tables, or taking care of themselves or their loved ones.

Communities deserve the right to pass laws that benefit the public health and the health of the people who live and work there.

But, right now, Florida legislators are close to taking away that right.

They’re listening to corporate interests who are telling them that local paid sick days measures — like the one supported by more than 50,000 voters in Orange County last year — are “bad for business.” We know better.

Paid sick days are working well in cities like San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. And lawmakers in Portland, Oregon, and New York City are close to rolling out their own local paid sick days standards.

But if H.B. 655 / S.B. 726 passes, Florida cities and towns will not have this right. (as reported by truthout.org)

By: d.william 05/03/2013