Sunday, October 18, 2009

looking forward

when my mom and stepfather divorced 32 years ago he told me that when you have nothing to look forward to, you look back. 25 years later i remembered his words as i faced my own divorce. it was comforting to look back and remember happy times, old friends, past loves. not only was it comforting it was easy to idealize those times and people and erase the painful present.

i'm thinking that some marketing genius at facebook realized this as well and marketed to the over 40 year old hoping that enough were unhappy with the now and wanted to look back. this group must be a big part of their business. is the need to reconnect with friends, loves from your past because of missing something in your life now or just curiosity?

it's definitely exciting at first to rekindle relationships. after the initial "friending" has taken place and the burst of information trading is completed, conversations seem to progress in only a couple of ways: 1. you realize that you haven't spoken in 30 years because you don't have anything in common and it pretty much fizzles then and there, or 2. realize that the friendship or relationship you had still has a special spark and you begin a new phase of the relationship in the now.

wwcd: with that spark in place, move it forward and don't look back

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