Happy Friendship Day, 2011!

 

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Friends are there to cheer our successes and help us recover from our losses.

When you saw this headline, I bet your reaction was something akin to, "National Friendship Day? Who knew? But I kid you not: Friendship Day falls midway between Poultry Day (which is in May) and Bologna Day (which is in October).
In 1935, the US Congress proclaimed the first Sunday in August each year as Friendship Day. Most people haven't heard of it because friendship has no trade association and the day hasn't become highly commercialized.
If you want to scoff at the silly idea of a day celebrating friendship, you can ignore it and treat the day like any another Sunday. No one will know. But the loss will be yours.
On the other hand, if you set aside as few as 10 or 15 minutes today to think about your friendships, you'll probably see a worthwhile return on your investment. Here are some ideas about how you can use that time:

• Pick up the phone or email someone you know. Make an actual appointment for that elusive lunch date you've been promising each other. Write it in ink on the very same calendar that you use to make an appointment with a hairdresser or a doctor.

• Write an old-fashioned catch up note or letter on nice stationery and snail mail it with a pretty stamp. Send it to someone you miss, whose friendship was once important to you – a college friend, an old neighbor, or someone who used to work with you. The note doesn't have to be wordy. Enclose a recent picture of you or your dog, your kid, or your house, and don't forget to include your phone number and email address.

• If you're feeling like you have no one to reach out to, bear in mind that you're not alone. A landmark study found that between 1986 and 2006, the number of people who said they had no close confidants at all had doubled over those two decades. Use your time on Friendship Day to think about the ways in which you might be able to make a new friend. That task can feel daunting but remember you only need to find one person, not a tribe, and the person doesn't have to be a soul mate at the onset; intimacy, closeness, and a shared history develop over time.

• Don't let technology (e.g. social media like Facebook and Twitter) rob you of the time you need to connect with real friends. Your computer is a wonderful tool that can help you make new friends and connect with old ones but it doesn't substitute for face time. If these ideas seem to have a kernel of truth to them, why don't you post a message about Friendship Day (or share this post) on your Facebook status today? Putting something in writing and announcing it to others often helps us keep commitments.

With the hectic pace of our busy lives, it's too easy to take friendships, even very good ones, for granted. Perhaps you've focused your time and energies on your career or your family to the exclusion of friends. Or perhaps, you're a bit shy or introverted, and began to think you really enjoyed spending all your time alone. Or maybe you thought that one friend was enough — until you lost the one you had.
Friendship Day is a perfect reminder of all the health and emotional benefits of close friendships and provides each of us an opportunity to realign our priorities accordingly.

Happy Friendship Day to every  GS Job Point Visitor

Friendship Day celebrations take place on the first Sunday of August every year. The tradition of dedicating a day in honor of friends began in US in 1935. Gradually the festival gained popularity and today Friendship Day is celebrated in large number of countries including India. On this day people spend time with their friends and express love for them. Exchange of Friendship Day Gifts like flowers, cards and wrist bands is a popular tradition of this occasion.

Friends are really one of the most important asset of any one’s life.  You are lucky even if you have only one good friend.  It does not matter if you have thousands of friends, what matters at the end of the day is whether you have any good friend or not? So, if you have any good friend, take the occasion to tell him how important he/she is for you.