{"id":5822,"date":"2014-08-13T21:55:21","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T13:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=5822"},"modified":"2014-08-13T21:55:21","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T13:55:21","slug":"good-friends-are-hard-to-find-and-even-harder-to-keep-tim-lott-commentisfree-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2014\/08\/13\/good-friends-are-hard-to-find-and-even-harder-to-keep-tim-lott-commentisfree-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Good friends are hard to find \u2013 and even harder to keep | Tim Lott | Commentisfree | The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

I do not know what I am doing right to have kept such good friends for so long, but it is certainly worth pointing out that none of them have got to the present point without negotiating moments of crisis. In each of my closest friends there have been moments when the friendship has nearly foundered \u2013 but we somehow came through them to a relationship that was stronger than it was before the crisis.
\nThe nature of friendship changes, and you have to change with it. Once, hopefully, I fascinated my friends and charmed them. After 40 years, I am sure I often bore them \u2013 and that is inevitable. A good friendship, like a good marriage, ceases after a while to be a mutual entertainment society and becomes instead a sorority or fraternity of battle-scarred veterans. We are still here, we still enjoy being around each other, and we treasure our shared histories. This is something precious, even if it isn\u2019t always a laugh riot.
\nIs there a secret to long friendships? Simply this \u2013 an absence of pride. Too many falter on stubbornness or the determination to hold on to offence. Successful ones rely on humility and the recognition of human fallibility. These are not merely useful attributes. They are the heart and soul of friendship.
\nvia Good friends are hard to find \u2013 and even harder to keep | Tim Lott | Commentisfree | The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I do not know what I am doing right to have kept such good friends for so long, but it is certainly worth pointing out that none of them have got to the present point without negotiating moments of crisis. In each of my closest friends there have been moments when the friendship has nearly … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Good friends are hard to find \u2013 and even harder to keep | Tim Lott | Commentisfree | The Guardian”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,62,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice-for-the-day","category-personal-angol","category-reposts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}