PROSPECTING Look for that which is good in other people, and you will find it.
If you make up your mind to conduct such a positive search day-after-day...every day, you will be amazed at the number of pleasant, happy, genuine, understanding individuals you will find, furthermore, how many truly outstanding individuals are there on the fringes of your world to be your friends.
It takes no special training for you to strike it rich in this type of prospecting. All that is required of you is that you school yourself into being pretty much what you hope to find in a new friend. The old gold prospectors during the Gold Rush days of the late 1840's, had to know what the gold they sought looked like, or, like many others before them, they would work long and hard to gather in a handful of iron pyrite fragments which, looks like gold, is said to feel like gold, engender the same sort of wild dreams in anyone who finds it, but, while it seems to be it is not gold. Nor, can it ever be. It cannot be magically transformed into the real thing by even the most sophisticated voodoo procedures of any old or modern form of alchemy
A strange thing often works out when you do this, too. Very often, it turns out they need you as much as, if not more, than you needed them. In some locales, in many situations, in various fields of work, being "good"- even moderately good - can be a lonely place.
Start by seeking to find something good in every person. There is something good in every one. Even those who have been found to be criminal in breaking mutually-beneficial laws set up to protect from each other. The worst of them may have a trait of goodness in his makeup. People who are seeking friends will , very often, ignore his or her faults and give undue accent to stated intentions which are not backed by resolute action. That's not place to seek lasting friendships. The dregs of seek riches. One can develop positive associations in a such "prison ministry" work but the friendships formed are,and remain, largely one-sided in favor of the doer. Such friendships, start, I think, and continue to be rather one-sided in favor of the doer. Their work can be worthwhile but it is not a good place - among the miss-placed, downtrodden, derelict or do-less persons. Aim higher where qualities of competition may well serve as a goad to strengthen your own ambitions and accomplishments.
Be intent on becoming a true friend. Try being who and what you are. That continues to be the best lure you can use. And, don't be in too much of a hurry. Good friendships - true treasures - are rare.
A.L.M. March 9, 2006 [c484wds]
