"Be a friend, tell a friend something nice. It might change their life"

There is a quote I hear daily; and from the first time I heard it; it stayed in my head. It is:

“Be a friend, tell a friend something nice. It might change their life”

If you’re an avid sports fan you’ve probably heard this quote too. It’s said by former NFL player and ESPN personality Pat McAfee on his show every day.

And sure it can be fleeting, but isn’t it also downright true?

When you’re in school you see the same people every day. That’s your community, those are the people you bond with, you laugh with, you spend your hard moments with. In simple terms those are your friends. And throughout life they are going to be the people you stick with. But they are also the people you will fall out of contact with. It happens we grow, we move, we get married, we start families and new lives. And we’ll see them on Facebook and be happy when their name pops up and know in our hearts they are still there and still chugging along.

This is where that quote gets me.

For me a majority of my friends unit started in Florida. It’s where on and off I spent my time in grade school and high school. It’s where a vast majority of people I know are. It’s them that I see on Facebook and know they are okay and doing well.

I’ve recently found myself trying to reconnect with some of them. People I haven’t spoken to in many years. I wanna know about them, what they’ve been up to, how are things and are they okay.

I don’t know if I am changing lives like Pat says, but you also never know. You or I could reach out to someone we haven’t talked to in forever that could be dealing with something and to know that someone cares or was thinking about them might just be that pick me up they needed. I know in the heights of my depression I needed that. I felt alone, but to know I wasn’t meant something.

We have to remind ourselves that just because we get older, or our distance changes doesn’t mean we’re not friends anymore.

We all have the ability to pick up a phone and send a simple hello.

It’s that hello that might change their life.

You just gotta be a friend.