The person in my life with the deepest and most lasting friendships has a simple rule.

If she’s on a trip and she’s within 50 miles of one of her good friends, she finds a way to see him or her. She takes a bus or train. She opens her room, throws a sheet over the desk to turn it into a dinner table, and creates a central place for a visit. She rents a car or hops on a bike. In the time that many of us would spend deciding if we were going to be able to squeeze in a visit, texting back and forth with our friends, she finds a way to bridge the distance. You see, she made that decision — once — a long time ago.

Decades of working this simple system have yielded exactly what you would imagine in terms of warmth, joy, and familiarity — friendships of deep and lasting significance.

Another debunking of the “this just happens” myth.