To Have a Good Life, Keep Making New Friends

In 2011 I trained with these aircraft fuelers for three weeks. I thought I was going to Afghanistan with them. I didn't.  They did. They cut the deployment list and I did not go, but we trained together, sharing the happiness and hardships of Army life.   

I recently talked to my uncle David who is in his mid-80s. He is very successful: an engineer who started his own company and sold it for more than $10 million when he retired.  In the 45 minutes we talked he would mention friends and colleagues who were in ill health, who recently died, or who were limiting their activity due to their age.  

He is part of successful graduating class at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), has life-long friends and colleagues, and his friends, like him, are rich.  

David does not have friends half his age, or less.  Making friends requires having time to give or simply waste, and it requires equality. Over the past two decades, I have worked with, trained with, volunteered with, and just spent time with people who are half my age. I have made new friends during those years because we were doing the same tasks, with the same goal and we were peers.

My last job was at a museum and library of the history of science.  Non-profits tend to have a staff that is either just starting their careers or near retirement.  Since I worked in communications, many of my colleagues were in their 20s and 30s.  I was a writer who managed a program, so we were always peers on projects.  Because we were peers, there was always  a potential to make friendships.  Since my retirement, several of my former co-workers have been in book groups I was in. 

During the pandemic, a former colleague who got a big promotion was talking about the next step after Director of the Library. We laughed and laughed and decided to form the World Conquest Book Club, because it was one short step from Director of the Library to Ruler of the World!

Some of my co-workers became fellow protestors since 2016. I also made friends among my protest group participants.  We stand together in all weather, we face hecklers together and celebrate victories.

When I re-enlisted in the Army at age 54, I was an enlisted man. I made sergeant pretty quickly, but I was working and training with junior sergeants and enlisted men.  Some were half my age, some were a third.  The Army always has "hurry up and wait time" so we could talk and among a large group, find the people who we wanted to be friends with.  

And now volunteering with Razom, I am meeting many people I like, and a few who I really connect with. Most of the volunteers are in their 20s and 30s and Ukrainian. While we are making medical kits, as with serving in the army, we are all equal, doing a hot, dirty job, that really gives us the satisfaction of knowing we are helping soldiers in a noble cause.  

None of my life has a plan. I wasn't sure if I would have kids: I have six to nine depending on how you count.  I was sure I was done with the Army at age 27.  Then I wasn't. All of my childhood I wanted to be a truck driver and a soldier.  I achieved those life goals by age 19 then started on new ones.  

All of my life, I was a worker or manager of a small team, whether in white or blue collar jobs.  I made enough money to have all those kids and a nice life, but not to be rich.  When the opportunity to volunteer came up, I could go there and be just another pair of hands.  So this year, I could go to a New Jersey warehouse as a volunteer and simply be that pair of hands. And make new friends. 

Since I retired in 2015, I have been to many new places, done things I had never done before, and made new friends. The kind of people willing to stand in the rain and sleet to protest injustice; people with jobs and kids who make combat medical kits to help the soldiers fighting the invasion of their country; people who read, reflect and want to talk about the books that move them, and people who know the thrill of climbing a three-mile hill, then flying back down at either side of 50 miles per hour: these are my people.

One of the difficulties of power and wealth, is that it becomes more difficult to trust people--are they with you just to be near power and money? And, of course, if you have great possessions, to some extent those possessions have you. A couple with three houses and three cars has a lot of laundry to do and fenders to wash.  And they don't have time to just be another pair of hands in a warehouse in New Jersey trying to make a small difference and meeting the kind of people who strive for a better world.

Of course, keeping old friends is important too.  I just got back from traveling in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway with my roommate from 1979 in Cold War, West Germany.  I am looking forward to my 50th high school reunion in October. Like ancient people, I think friendship very important to living a good life--indispensable.  And listening to other people close to or in the eighth decade of life, making friends throughout our lives is a big part of a good life.