{"id":7263,"date":"2016-02-04T19:05:15","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T23:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arts.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=7263"},"modified":"2016-02-04T19:05:15","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T23:05:15","slug":"the-gift-of-friendship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2016\/02\/04\/the-gift-of-friendship\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gift of Friendship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Two<\/p>\n

It\u2019s my senior year, and while I\u2019ve lost a lot of friends and gained a lot of friends throughout my existence, it feels strange knowing that the end of this year will mark another time in my life that\u00a0friends will purposely leave and enter. I\u2019m not upset about that\u2014it\u2019s only life, but because of this, I\u2019ve been thinking about my friends a lot lately.<\/p>\n

As it happens, today is Facebook\u2019s 12th birthday, and apparently they\u2019ve been thinking about friendships, too. In an emotionally charged compilation of pictures, Facebook came up with a campaign to showcase social networks, AKA friends. And thus, #friendsday began.<\/p>\n

When I went to check out my video, I wasn\u2019t sure if I\u2019d like it. As I said, I\u2019ve been considering my friendships a lot lately and I was a little nervous to see what Facebook thought about the people I surround myself with. I loved my video, though. It showed me people I care about and the moments that I shared with them. And even though I\u2019m not as close with some of those people, or I don\u2019t get to see them as much, I\u2019m still glad they were in my video. Every friendship I\u2019ve ever had has helped me become who I am, and Facebook\u2019s #friendsday video showed a little part of that.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

My mom once told me, \u201cfriends are like elevators. They can bring you up, or they can take you down.\u201d Now,\u00a0okay, my mom told me that when my two friends from middle school and I skipped a free ACT prep class to go to 7\/11 and Rite Aid and she was trying to explain peer pressure and how friends can affect actions, but that\u2019s not all that sentence can mean. It can be so much more.<\/p>\n

Good friends can bring you up and hold you there in a warm hug of love and affection. They can encourage you to shoot for the stars and make you feel good about yourself and most everything you do. They\u2019ll tell you to do things because they know what will make you better and make you happy. They\u2019ll support you and tell you when you\u2019re being an idiot in the best way possible. And, they\u2019ll laugh with you until your sides hurt and eat grilled cheese with you at three in the morning just because you had a craving. These friends are good friends.<\/p>\n

\"Amy<\/p>\n

\"Amy\u00a0\"Parks<\/p>\n

Bad friends, on the other hand, can drag you down to the depths of despair. They can make you anxious and stressed out. They can make you feel worthless and uneasy, like your goals are pointless and shouldn\u2019t be reached for. They can do rude or obnoxious things to you that make you question why you would be friends with them in the first place. Here\u2019s a hint: you\u2019re not. Drop. Those. Friends.<\/p>\n

Everyone deserves to have good friends who bring you to the top floor of the Empire State Building. Yep, that\u2019s right, I\u2019m sticking with the weird elevator thing. So, if you find yourself being lowered to some dark and stinky basement by your \u201cfriends\u201d, just know that you don\u2019t have to get off the elevator with them. Say good bye and find the people who really care about you. Believe me, they\u2019re out there waiting to journey skyward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s my senior year, and while I\u2019ve lost a lot of friends and gained a lot of friends throughout my existence, it feels strange knowing that the end of this year will mark another time in my life that\u00a0friends will purposely leave and enter. I\u2019m not upset about that\u2014it\u2019s only life, but because of this, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2179,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[840,535,945,858],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7263"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7639,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263\/revisions\/7639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}