I will start, since it was my thread.
Recently I have thought of my life and knew of two good people that were friends and had a solid position in my life back in that specific time in my life.
Friend #1 was my high school friend. When I moved to Salem Oregon and was the new kid in high school, this friend (who I did not know at the time) came to my house and invited me to go bowling with him and two female friends. We developed a good brother type friendship and his family was as my second family. Through him I had meet my other best high school friends and some girlfriends
. He was one of the reasons I consider those years as the best years of my youth. I had a lot of fun and it started due his friendship with me. This happened about 20 years ago and we have not had a lot of contact since then because we both moved on with our lives. We have each others email addresses and communicated several time throughout the years. So what I did was to write a "Thank You" letter. I thanked him for the act of coming over to my house and invited me to be friends with him and his friends. I thanked him for his true friendship with me. I stated what it meant to me to be his friend.
Friend #2 was a supervisor I had at a job about 12 years ago. This job could be a demanding job in a volatile work environment and friend #2 showed confidence in his job output and the way he performed his job. I told myself that when I became a supervisor I wanted to be like friend #2 because of the great example he provided. We became good friends. I later left that employment and lost contact with friend #2. Now at my current job, I made a supervisor rank about 3 years ago and I have tried to become as friend #2. But I am not like friend #2, like I wanted. But I still think he was a great example, the best example of a supervisor that I have had. So what I did was to write a "Thank you" letter and indicated that he was such a great example of a supervisor I wanted to become like him but due to my personality difference I was not able become like him but he was still the standard of a great supervisor and that I fell short of it. I do my best to be like him but I know we are different which is OK. I feel as though I am a better supervisor because of him.
I felt the need to write these letters because something told me that I needed to express to them that I valued their examples/friendship. I did so without wanting to receive something in return.
What are you grateful for and what can you do to “pay it forward”?
; it is all good. I will end this before this time passes and something selfish creeps into my mind that I would want.