Intention is 9/10 of the Law
“I have noticed in recent years the transformation of the word “intentional” into something personal, something that an individual does with clear purpose or intent. Ruth was intentional long before it was fashionable. Just about everything she did was intentional.”
The quote above jumped out at me last night as I was reading NPR Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg’s book, “Dinners with Ruth,” about her decades-long friendship with the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The book is a marvelous meditation on the importance of friendship, and how we must make nurturing those relationships a priority, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. And that really comes down to living with intention.
It’s ridiculously easy to sleepwalk your way through your workday, your week, your weekend, and even your life. There’s just so much to do, between work and family and car maintenance and bill paying — the list keeps going — that you can easily go several days, even months, without spending real time with friends. That is, unless you make the effort to see them.
I remember how disorienting it was when I entered The Real World and I had to make an effort to see friends. During undergrad and law school, my “work” was going to school, which was where my friends were. And even when I didn’t have classes with them, we all pretty much lived near each other, so the effort it took to make friends and maintain those friendships was pretty minimal.
But once you enter The Work World, and you spend all day at the office, and the people you used to spend your evenings and weekends with might now live on the other side of town, or the state, or the country — it gets a lot rougher.
I should point out that I got out of law school in 1985, which was before social media or mobile phones. The internet and email were in their infancy. Even calling someone in another city was a big deal. I know this will come as a shock to anybody reading this who’s under 40, but there was a time not very long ago when calling someone in another city was considered “long distance,” and it wasn’t cheap.
All this to say, as hard as it is today to maintain friendships — even with all the communication tools we have at our disposal — it was several times harder in the 80s.
Friendships require intention. As with anything else important in our lives, they don’t happen when we “have time” for them. They happen because we make time for them.
Make time for lunches, dinners, spa days, card games, girls’ trips, game nights — anything that gives you time with the friends you love and without whom your life would be significantly less joyful.
Maybe, someday, one of them will even be on the Supreme Court.
Wishing you #OnlyJoy
— Kathleen