Let us take a step back for a moment and ponder how we got to this point in our lives. Think back on your successes, and what it took to obtain them. Think back on your failures, and how you learned from then. Interwoven in your successes were people who aided your ability to obtain your achievements. Intertwined in your failures were people who provided support, reassurance, and pushed you to keep moving forward. These people are what I like to call, in simple terms, friends.
Whether direct or indirect, friends provide happiness, loyalty, and meaning to our every-day lives. Friends are the sails and compass to our ship, they have the ability to navigate and guide us where we want to end up. In view of this, I invite you to celebrate National Friendship Day (NFD). Traditionally, NFD is celebrated on the first Sunday of August, with this year’s celebration falling on August 4th. NFD began in 1919 when Joyce Hall, founder of Hallmark cards, dedicated a day for people to celebrate their friendship by sending one another cards. To consumers, this was an obvious “push” for the promotion of her company and for the purchase of her cards. By the 1940s, the celebration of the holiday had largely dwindled down.
The holiday began to gather momentum when the wife of a UN Secretary-General named Winnie the Pooh as the world’s Ambassador of Friendship at the United Nations. Even though it is often celebrated on the first Sunday of August, in July of 2011, the United Nations officially declared July 30th as being the International Day of Friendship.
National Friendship Day is an international holiday that celebrates not only the importance of friendship, but how much of an influence friends have. As our 28th President of the United States, Woodrow T. Wilson, said best, “Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.”
