Disconnected Friendship Quotes

It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.

Connection is life; disconnection, death.

There are many types of marriage relationships and all of them can work, but none is sadder than the one that doesn't represent peace in your heart.

If you never listen, you can't see. The devil has got so many people so disconnected that they cannot even listen or even sense when the Lord is speaking.

The non-anxious person rejects loneliness. He or she chooses connection, even when it’s hard. You choose love over hate, friendships over disconnection, and awkwardness over networking. This is an entry point toward a non-anxious life.

Most parents thought they were being good parents. They learned from their parents or their grandparents, many of whom were severely traumatized and emotionally disconnected coming out of the devastation of a 1918 influenza pandemic and two world wars.

I came in friendship, but how do you convey intention to a harbor seal? I thought later that I should have left offerings on the island—silvery fish heads, glistening blue necklaces of entrails and bracelets of feathery gills. But I never thought of it then.

I used to imagine life divided into separate compartments, consisting, for example, of such dual abstractions as pleasure and pain, love and hate, friendship and enmity; and more material classifications like work and play: a profession or calling being, according to that concept—one that seemed, at least on the surface, unequivocally assumed by persons so dissimilar from one another as Widmerpool and Archie Gilbert, something entirely different from “spare time.” That illusion, as such a point of view was, in due course, to appear—was closely related to another belief: that existence fans out indefinitely into new areas of experience, and that almost every additional acquaintance offers some supplementary world with its own hazards and enchantments. As time goes on, of course, these supposedly different worlds, in fact, draw closer, if not to each other, then to some pattern common to all; so that, at last, diversity between them, if in truth existent, seems to be almost imperceptible except in a few crude and exterior ways: unthinkable, as formerly appeared, any single consummation of cause and effect. In other words, nearly all the inhabitants of these outwardly disconnected empires turn out at last to be tenaciously inter-related; love and hate, friendship and enmity, too, becoming themselves much less clearly defined, more often than not showing signs of possessing characteristics that could claim, to say the least, not a little in common; while work and play merge indistinguishably into a complex tissue of pleasure and tedium.

In other words, nearly all the inhabitants of these outwardly disconnected empires turn out at last to be tenaciously inter-related; love and hate, friendship and enmity, too, becoming themselves much less clearly defined, more often than not showing signs of possessing characteristics that could claim, to say the least, not a little in common; while work and play merge indistinguishably into a complex tissue of pleasure and tedium.

Tomorrow is just as real a thing as yesterday. So is day after next, and the rest of them. Because you cannot see the future, it does not follow that it is not there. Your own path may vary widely, but the piece of country you are to travel is solid and real. We have been most erroneously taught not to think of the future; to live only in the present: and at the same time we have been taught to guide our lives by an ideal of the remotest possible future - a postmortem eternity. Between the contradictory ideals of this paradox, most of us drag along, forced by the exigencies of business to consider some future, but ignoring most of it. A single human life is short enough to be well within range of anybody's mind. Allow for it eighty years: if you don't have eight you are that much in - so much less to plan for. Sit down wherever you happen to be; under twenty, over fifty, anywhere on the road; lift your eyes from your footsteps, and "look before and after." Look back, see the remarkable wiggling sort of path you have made; see the places where you made no progress at all, but simply tramped up and down without taking a step. Ask yourself: "If I had thought about what I should be feeling toady, would I have behaved as I did then?" Quite probably not. But why not? Why not, in deciding on own's path and gait at a given moment, consider that inevitable advancing future? Come it will; but how it comes, what it is, depends on us. Then look ahead; not merely just before your nose, but way ahead. It is a good and wholesome thing to plan out one's whole life; as one thinks it is likely to be; as one desires it should be; and then act accordingly. Suppose you are about twenty-five. Consider a number of persons of fifty or sixty, and how they look. Do you want to look like that? What sort of a body do you want at fifty? It is in your hands to make. In health, in character, in business, in friendship, in love, in happiness; your future is very largely yours to make. Then why not make it? Suppose you are thirty, forty, fifty, sixty. So long as you have a year before you it is worth while to consider it in advance. Live as a whole, not in disconnected fractions.

Ball busting [a friendly form of humor]...contains a fundamental flaw, one that has done immeasurable harm to the male psyche, and basically eliminated dance and music as potential outlets for bonding. That is the use of the term 'gaaay.' It's a form of self-policing, some fucked-up safe word that got called out if any behavior approached a level where it felt intimate or affectionate. Really anything that felt 'feminine,' and that list was long. It was not used to describe romantic attraction to another many--though it certainly insulted that entire idea in an inexcusable way--but instead was used to reinforce what Niobe Way, a psychology professor at NYU, calls the 'crisis of connection' among men. We so fear being called -gaaay- for making connections that are 'feminine' that we sacrifice intimacy for casual banter. It's a huge disconnect, perhaps the central one at the heart of the problems of with modern male bonding. And unlike many 'male' things, it cannot be blamed on genetics. It's cultural. It's learned.

As the Harvard Gazette summarized in 2017: Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives. . . . Those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes. That finding proved true across the board among both the Harvard men and the inner-city participants.[7] Men who’d had warm childhood relationships with their parents earned more as adults than men whose parent-child bonds were more strained. They were also happier and less likely to suffer dementia in old age. People with strong marriages suffered less physical pain and emotional distress over the course of their lives. Individuals’ close friendships were more accurate predictors of healthy aging than their cholesterol levels. Social support and connections to a community helped insulate people against disease and depression. Meanwhile, loneliness and disconnection, in some cases, were fatal.

I USED to imagine life divided into separate compartments, consisting, for example, of such dual abstractions as pleasure and pain, love and hate, friendship and enmity; and more material classifications like work and play: a profession or calling being, according to that concept—one that seemed, at least on the surface, unequivocally assumed by persons so dissimilar from one another as Widmerpool and Archie Gilbert—something entirely different from ‘spare time’. That illusion—as such a point of view was, in due course, to appear—was closely related to another belief: that existence fans out indefinitely into new areas of experience, and that almost every additional acquaintance offers some supplementary world with its own hazards and enchantments. As time goes on, of course, these supposedly different worlds, in fact, draw closer, if not to each other, then to some pattern common to all; so that, at last, diversity between them, if in truth existent, seems to be almost imperceptible except in a few crude and exterior ways: unthinkable as formerly appeared any single consummation of cause and effect. In other words, nearly all the inhabitants of these outwardly disconnected empires turn out at last to be tenaciously interrelated; love and hate, friendship and enmity, too, becoming themselves much less clearly defined, more often than not showing signs of possessing characteristics that could claim, to say the least, not a little in common; while work and play merge indistinguishably into a complex tissue of pleasure and tedium.

After I returned from that morning, our telephone rang incessantly with requests for interviews and photos. By midafternoon I was exhausted. At four o’clock I was reaching to disconnect the telephone when I answered one last call. Thank heavens I did! I heard, “Mrs. Robertson? This is Ian Hamilton from the Lord Chamberlain’s office.” I held my breath and prayed, “Please let this be the palace.” He continued: “We would like to invite you, your husband, and your son to attend the funeral of the Princess of Wales on Saturday in London.” I was speechless. I could feel my heart thumping. I never thought to ask him how our name had been selected. Later, in London, I learned that the Spencer family had given instructions to review Diana’s personal records, including her Christmas-card list, with the help of her closest aides. “Yes, of course, we absolutely want to attend,” I answered without hesitating. “Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how much this means to me. I’ll have to make travel plans on very short notice, so may I call you back to confirm? How late can I reach you?” He replied, “Anytime. We’re working twenty-four hours a day. But I need your reply within an hour.” I jotted down his telephone and fax numbers and set about making travel arrangements. My husband had just walked in the door, so we were able to discuss who would travel and how. Both children’s passports had expired and could not be renewed in less than a day from the suburbs where we live. Caroline, our daughter, was starting at a new school the very next day. Pat felt he needed to stay home with her. “Besides,” he said, “I cried at the wedding. I’d never make it through the funeral.” Though I dreaded the prospect of coping with the heartbreak of the funeral on my own, I felt I had to be there at the end, no matter what. We had been with Diana at the very beginning of the courtship. We had attended her wedding with tremendous joy. We had kept in touch ever since. I had to say good-bye to her in person. I said to Pat, “We were there for the ‘wedding of the century.’ This will be ‘the funeral of the century.’ Yes, I have to go.” Then we just looked at each other. We couldn’t find any words to express the sorrow we both felt.

So how does one bring about the restoration of value-based behavior in the marketplace and in the other arenas of modern life? I offer four simple suggestions, as follows: When you engage in something that affects others, first ask yourself: Is this right? Would I like to be treated this way? Take your values to work. Don’t disconnect them when you sit down at your desk. There should not be a conflict between making a profit and adhering to traditional principles of decency and fairness. Consider yourself your brothers’ and sisters’ keeper and set the example for ethical behavior. There should not be a conflict between making a profit and adhering to traditional principles of decency and fairness. Make the underpinnings of your life a string of f-words (phonetically, at least): family, faith, fortitude, fairness, fidelity, friendship, and philanthropy.

Sin does disconnect us from intimate fellowship with God. We grieve God’s Spirit and quench our fellowship with him by disobedience, conflict with others, busyness, friendship with the world, and other sins.

Shame is the fear of disconnection, the doubts about whether we're worthy of love, and the suspicion that we are never quite enough, therefore we might never quite belong.

When God seems distant, you may feel that he is angry with you or is disciplining you for some sin. In fact, sin does disconnect us from intimate fellowship with God. We grieve God’s Spirit and quench our fellowship with him by disobedience, conflict with others, busyness, friendship with the world, and other sins.10

Integrity is distinct from authenticity. Integrity doesn’t require us to act out every private thought and feeling. Sometimes, counterintuitively, integrity requires a disconnect between our inner feelings and our outer conduct. But this disconnect exists to serve others. Integrity expresses itself in action based on deeply held core values—for example, the value of friendship and respecting those around us—rather than temporary feelings or selfish desire. When we find ourselves in a disagreement with a friend, spouse, or sibling, we will often bite our tongues instead of saying exactly how we feel. This is inauthentic. But it’s not hypocritical.

The only way to truly know the validity of any connection is to disconnect

It is a common occurrence to sit with a precious but struggling son or daughter of God who shares that while they have many friendly people in their life with whom they share a hobby, workspace, or the banter of small talk, they don’t feel they really have any core friends who regularly see and pursue them. They express restlessness at the lack of a place to belong. They are lonely. At the same time, these are almost always the same people who tell me they are “just too busy” to join a small group, ministry team, or even attend church regularly. Chalking their struggles up to God’s injustice, their brokenness, or a problem with the church, most don’t stop to consider a far more obvious truth. We’ve positioned our lives at a pace that is not conducive for building deep friendships. We spend 38 days a year staring at a screen in third person, but have lost the relational rhythms of building roots with actual people.

When a child learns separation and disconnection, they become disconnected from the Love that they are and are cast into illusion and suffering.

You can either strengthen a child in love and connection or you can plant seeds of self-doubt, self-rejection, and disconnection. The choice is yours.

Remember, the illusion of life intrudes to distract and disconnect families; forgive the illusion. Forgive the missteps of your mother and father.

Until this night, this awful night, he’d had a little joke about himself. He didn’t know who he was, or where he’d come from, but he knew what he liked. And what he liked was all around him-the flower stands on the corners, the big steel and glass buildings filled with milky evening light, the trees, of course, the grass beneath his feet. And the telephones-it didn’t matter. He liked to figure them out, master them, then crush them into tiny hard multicolored balls which he could then juggle or toss through plate glass windows when nobody was about. He liked piano music, the motion pictures, and the poems he found in books. He also liked the automobiles that burnt oil from the earth like lamps. And the great jet planes that flew on the same scientific principles, above the clouds. He always stopped and listened to the people laughing and talking up there when one of the people laughing and talking up there when one of the planes flew overhead. Driving was an extraordinary pleasure. In a silver Mercedes-Benz, he had sped on smooth empty roads from Rome to Florence to Venice in one night. He also liked television-the entire electric process of it, with tiny bits of lights. How soothing it was to have the company of the television, the intimacy with so many artfully painted faces speaking to you in friendship from the glowing screen. The rock and roll, he liked that too. He liked the music. He liked the Vampire Lestat singing “Requiem for the Marquise”. He didn’t pay attention to the words much. It was the melancholy and the dark undertone of drums and cymbals. Made him want to dance. He liked the giant yellow machines that dug into the earth late at night in the big cities with men in uniforms, crawling all over them; he liked the double-decker buses of London, and the people-the clever mortals everywhere-he liked, too, of course. He liked walking in Damascus during the evening, and seeing in sudden flashes of disconnected memory the city of the ancients. Romans, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians in these streets. He liked the libraries where he could find photographs of ancient monuments in big smooth good-smelling books. He took his own photographs of the new cities around him and sometimes he could put images on those pictures which came from his thoughts. For example, in his photograph of Rome there were Roman people in tunics and sandals superimposed upon the modern versions in their thick ungraceful clothes. Oh, yes, much to like around him always-the violin music of Bartók, little girls in snow white dresses coming out of the church at midnight having sung at the Christmas mass. He liked the blood of his victims too, of course. That went without saying. It was no part of his little joke. Death was not funny to him. He stalked his prey in silence; he didn’t want to know his victims. All a mortal had to do was speak to him and he was turned away. Not proper, as he saw it, to talk to these sweet, soft-eyed things and then gobble their blood, break their bones and lick the marrow, squeeze their limbs to dripping pulp. And that was the way he feasted now, so violently. He felt no great need for blood anymore; but he wanted it. And the desire overpowered him in all its ravening purity, quite apart from the thirst. He could have feasted upon three or four mortals a night.