Removing Your Mañana Gene

True friends are the people in your life who make you laugh louder,
smile brighter and live better.
Anon

by Skip Cohen

​It's Sunday, and if you've followed me for even a short time, you already know how off-track I get from marketing and business today. That's because Sunday is my day to do a brain dump of whatever is most on my mind. And while this ties into my resolutions for the new year, I'm betting a few of you should join me.

I'm tired of "mañana" being an all-encompassing word for procrastination, especially with friends. Where it all started for me was coming out of the pandemic and missing contact with good friends. I remember being a guest on a podcast and being asked what I missed the most. My answer: "Bumping into people...literally."

So, IUSA was the first time in over two years that Sheila and I were together at a convention. We caught up with old friends and got out to breakfast, lunch, and dinner with as many friends as possible. Since then, I've kept my mañana gene on a very short leash. We've got friends we caught up to in Nashville - before the year is up, we're going north for a weekend with them, and they're looking at coming down here. Then we've got other friends who will be in the area for a month! 

Friendship: A state in which acquaintances become indelibly linked to one another through shared experiences creating a unique connection that results in comforting good times and a life of memories.
Diane Stimson

It's too easy to let life get in the way when one of the most essential ingredients is friendship. It takes work, but it's not impossible, and it's certainly not rocket science. Best of all, there's this new gadget called a phone! Three times this past week, I picked up the phone and just called somebody out of the blue. No real purpose except to catch up on their lives. No texting - no emails - just my old-school approach to keeping in touch!

Here's my point - life is too short. But, unfortunately, you don't realize it until you pass fifty, and then the days go by faster and faster until you feel trapped in an old Jimmy Stewart movie and the hands of an analog clock are spinning...sadly many of you don't know who Jimmy Stewart was. So, visualize the scene, and trust me!

The bottom line is that we can control and stifle our mañana gene - there is no expiration date on good friendships, but they do require a little ongoing nourishment! So make today a day when you pick out an old friend and pick up the phone! And if there's an opportunity actually to get together, go for it. Grab those eleven-second therapeutic hugs I always write about, and cherish your friends TODAY, not mañana.

We'll be friends until we're old and senile...then we'll be new friends!
Anon

Happy Sunday, or Monday if you're on the other side of the world.