We are all born social and company to live happy and fruitful life. Healthy and supportive mutual relationships help reduce stress and promote the, physical, mental and emotional well-being by building skills like time management, assertiveness( 坚定自信), sociability and empathy.

Making friends has made me feel secure. However, I have to be cautious to pick up friends sharing similar tastes and values. In addition, having added to one’s circle of friends helps one feel supported.

It is true that finding time to cultivate relationships is all about effective time management. My busy uncle finds time to catch up with family and friends during his tea and lunch breaks. Similarly my friend Somya uses her time on her way back home from work in her chauffeur-driven car to catch up with people. The modern inventions of SMS and e-mail help send wishes for birthdays and anniversaries to show your love and care.

Assertiveness is as much applicable to relationships. My friend Mohana emphasizes that neither being a passive observer nor being aggressive helps relationships. It is assertiveness in our relationships that opens the lines of effective communication. It emphasizes helping friends in need and also strengthens mutually supportive relationships.

It is also true that assertiveness by intuition promotes discretion(自行决定权) of friends and helps Lalitha distinguish positive people from drains of energy. She can easily figure this out by the flow of the conversation, the way each feels understood, accepted and supported, and by how I feel, happy, bored or energized in the relationship. It also helps to know whether all benefit from each other’s positive aspects.

Handling stress in life is all about cultivating mutually supportive relationships and working on them. Manisha always says she feels great when sharing her feelings after a hard day with people who share similar ideas. Actually we all need someone who would not just hear us, but listen to us, and we need to cultivate the art of listening and understanding people.

Working from home has its advantages, but a sense of community is not one of them. Still, feeling connected at work is necessary for our success in our jobs and lives. Research finds that people with friends at work are more satisfied with and perform better at their jobs. 【小题1】

Schedule an informal meeting just to chat.

You can’t build a friendship if you only ever talk about work. One study found that while people feel closer the more time they spend together, this wasn’t true at work. 【小题2】 This is likely because when we only focus on work, we don’t reveal anything about ourselves. If you want to make friends at work, stop talking about work.

【小题3】

Friendship is not built from one interaction; it grows gradually. We unconsciously like those we are more exposed to. Scheduling an informal chat is great, but this chat needs to be repeated for a friendship to develop. The best way to do this is to put a standing meeting on your calendar, perhaps once a week or once a month, depending on preference.

Share more of yourself.

Now that you have stopped talking about work, start sharing stories. Study shows that people like people who share details about themselves. 【小题4】 Use interesting questions to get to know your co-workers. Some good options are: What do you do for fun? What were you like in high school?

Express praise.

We often think likable people are funny or smart, but the secret to being likable is actually to like people. 【小题5】 Co-workers will be more likely to want to be your friend if you show them you like them by doing things like greeting them warmly and celebrating their success.

Great friendships made over time

What kind of relationship do you think will provide you with more life satisfaction, better health and complete happiness? 【小题1】   A familial (家庭的) one? Surprisingly, the answer is friendship.

However, it’s not possible to have true friends without first making regular friends. Have you ever thought about how long it takes to turn an acquaintance (认识的人) into a true friend? 【小题2】 According to lead study author Jeffrey Hall, we need to spend at least 80 hours with another person to create a true friendship with them.

【小题3】 One group consisted of 429 adults who had recently relocated (搬家), while the other was made up of 112 freshmen from the University of Kansas. The results showed that the more time each person spent together, the faster friendship formed in both groups. But it seemed that Hall wasn’t satisfied with the result. 【小题4】 According to the survey, “casual” friends are generally formed after spending about 30 hours together. And people will go from casual friends to regular friends after another 50 hours. However, it takes a lot longer to get really close to someone: A “close” friendship takes about 140 hours to create and “best friends” need about 300 hours.

But spending time together isn’t the only factor (元素) when it comes to making friends. “It’s not so important to just be in the company of someone… 【小题5】,”   Since time is precious, Hall suggested taking advantage of our school years by making as many friends as we can.