How do you not be lonely?

You participate.

Participate in others lives.

Because, how often do we shirk that which is so important?  How often do we turn each other down?

Maybe take the easy way.

We skip a wedding. Then a few birthday parties.

That funeral is probably not that big of a deal either.

You turn your phone on silent and order pizza.

Then maybe you decide to not have kids because they are too expensive, you know.

And then the years go by.

None of that is the end of the world.

But where does it leave you? What richness of missed relationships is overlooked?

“Share your life with the people you love, even if it means saving up for a ticket and going without a few things for a while to make it work. There are enough long lonely days of the same old thing, and if you let enough years pass, and if you let the routine steamroll your life, you’ll wake up one day, isolated and weary, and wonder what happened to all those old friends. You’ll wonder why all you share is Christmas cards, and why life feels lonely and bone-dry.”

-Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet (Amazon)