Listen to Your Friends

Calvin is looking up into a star-filled sky when he says to his tiger friend Hobbes,“If people looked at the stars each night, I bet they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.”My friends are Calvin. I am Hobbes.Last week Hobbes was complaining to Jeffrey Eisenberg about his frustration with a company that had “upgraded” its website, making it impossible for Hobbes to buy what they were trying to sell. Jeffrey responded like Calvin,“The only things that matter online are Motivation, Momentum, and Friction. It sounds like this company has introduced so much Friction into the buying process that your decision to purchase has lost its Momentum and your Motivation is about to disappear. Am I right?”Jeffrey’s summary was so piercingly accurate that all I could do was vibrate my head up and down in a sort of big-eyed, high-frequency nod.Motivation, Momentum, and Friction are the only three dials that matter on the e-commerce machine.Turn the knobs of the first two dials all the way to the right.Turn the knob of the third dial all the way to the left.Stand under the spout where the money gushes out.Enjoy being rich.The next day I got a text from Tim Storm.” I think this needs to be understood: We are literally time travelers.”A few moments later, a second text appeared.“I don’t use drugs, but that felt profound to realize.”Tim is right, of course. Physically, we are 3-dimensional creatures traveling through a 4th dimension called time.Friends say insightful things if you’re listening.Perhaps the most impactful thing a friend ever shared with me happened 48 years ago. He said,“Depression is unfocused despair. You can rise above it by trying to help someone else. When you see a person who is sad or worried or afraid, take a few minutes to encourage them. Forget about your own problems and focus on theirs. Find a person who needs help and help them! If they’re trying to carry something heavy, help them carry it. If they need someone to help them scrape bubblegum off the bottoms of school desks, help them do it. When you make a series of little differences, you win a series of little victories. Keep this up and the cloud over your head will fade away and the sun will shine again. This has always worked for me. Perhaps it will work for you, too.”He was right. It has always worked for me.Perhaps it will work for you, too.His name was David. You would have liked him.Roy H. Williams