The other day a person contacted me if I was going to be at a specific place during the evening as normally I went to a place to help out where for the most part I didn’t mind donating my time as long as people show up. In the beginning everyone took it seriously and was appreciative of the whole setup. Eventually though it seemed like people took it for granted where other things in life constantly became a priority. This led to frequent no shows.
So eventually I just stopped going as per my original agreement where all I asked was that people don’t take it for granted. It made me think how many times when we have people within our social circle we tend to forget that it actually takes effort to maintain that link. Just assuming it will always be there regardless of what you do is a little odd. While granted people shouldn’t treat each other like a business trade everyone has to offer some kind of value of sort to keep things growing.
Otherwise it’s kind of like times where there is a person whom you have never spoken with forever and when they do speak with you they basically want something. Like here it can be great to genuinely keep people in mind where sending them leads or references is a fantastic way to show you want to keep the lines open. That doesn’t take much either. But you should always try and do something as opposed to assuming the person will naturally always be there.