27/09/2026
There is something I have learned as I have grown older: not every friendship is supposed to survive every season of your life.
When we were younger, friendship was almost automatic. You went to the same school, lived on the same street, played football together, attended the same church, sat on the same bench, or simply found yourselves in the same place every day. Before long, you became friends. You knew each other's families, secrets, problems, dreams and embarrassing stories. Some of those friendships were genuinely beautiful, and some of those people played very important roles in our lives. But then life started happening. One person went to university, another started a business, someone travelled, someone got married, another person became deeply focused on a career, while somebody else remained exactly where they were. Slowly, the things that originally connected all of you began to disappear.
Yet some people refuse to accept that a friendship has changed. They keep trying to recreate 2015 in 2026. They keep calling people they no longer have anything meaningful to discuss with, forcing conversations that have become empty and maintaining relationships simply because they have known the person for fifteen years. It is like carrying a suitcase with no wheels. You can keep carrying it, but at some point you should ask yourself why you are still doing it.
Friendships are seasonal. Very few people who are around you today will still be close to you when you are sixty, and there is nothing abnormal about that. It doesn't necessarily mean that somebody betrayed you or that somebody failed. Sometimes, you simply became different people. Your interests changed, your priorities changed, your ambitions became clearer, your environment changed, and the direction of your life took you somewhere the other person did not go. Not every ending needs a villain.
I think we sometimes make the mistake of believing that appreciating what somebody meant to us in the past means we must continue giving them the same position in our present. It doesn't. Somebody can have been an excellent friend to you at twenty and still not be the person you need around you at thirty-five. You can appreciate the years you shared without pretending that the relationship is still what it used to be.
There are people who were important during your childhood, people who helped you through university, people who were there when you were struggling, and people you will meet much later when your life has entered another level. Some people will walk with you for five years, others for twenty, and a very small number may remain with you for most of your life. The length of a friendship is not always the measure of its value.
But as you move into new seasons, you have to become intentional about the people you allow close to you. I have never understood why someone would deliberately spend years in environments where they are always the person with the biggest vision, the most information or the most ambition. There is comfort in being the person everybody comes to for advice, but there isn't always growth there. I would rather sit in a room where I realize that there are people who know things I don't know, have achieved things I haven't achieved and can challenge ideas I have become too comfortable with. Those rooms can humble you, but they can also teach you.
That is why I don't want to be the person doing the best among all the people around me. I want people around me who make me think harder, people whose experience exposes what I don't know and people who can look at something I am building and tell me where I am getting it wrong. Sometimes you need new friends not because your old friends are bad, but because your life has entered a season that requires different conversations.
Now, this brings me to another thing I have noticed among young people. Everybody wants a mentor. "Sir, please mentor me." "Ma, I have been following your work; please take me under your wing." There is nothing wrong with wanting to learn from people who are ahead of you. The problem is that many people approach mentorship as though it is a one-way transaction where the older or more experienced person is supposed to pour everything they know into them while they simply receive.
I remember a time when I wanted to understand the business side of social media better. There was somebody whose work I respected, and instead of approaching him with a long message asking him to mentor me, I looked for a way to become useful to him. I offered to help with his social media management for free. I wasn't saying that my work had no value; I was deliberately exchanging something I already knew for proximity to something I wanted to learn.
While I was doing the work, I was watching how he handled clients, how he positioned his services, how he negotiated, how he communicated, how he thought about business and how he turned knowledge into money. I was contributing while learning. That experience taught me something I still believe today: sometimes the best way to get close to somebody you want to learn from is to first ask yourself what you can do for them.
Imagine that you are very good at shooting and editing videos but you don't understand the business side of content creation or public speaking. Somewhere around you may be someone who understands business and communication extremely well but struggles with video. Why must your first conversation be, "Teach me"? You could offer to help them create better videos while learning from their experience. They get something they need, you get something you need, and both of you become better through the relationship.
That is a much healthier way to build a network. Your network should not simply be a collection of people you can call whenever you need something. If everyone in your phonebook is useful to you but you are useful to nobody, you don't really have a network; you have a contact list.
So yes, stop carrying dead friendships, but don't become arrogant about outgrowing people. Don't look at your childhood friends and suddenly decide they are beneath you because your life has changed. Some of them may simply belong to another chapter. Appreciate what they meant to you, keep the good memories and maintain the relationships that still make sense, but give yourself permission to meet new people who fit the season you are entering.
Find people who challenge your thinking and people who are building things you want to understand. Find people who are willing to tell you the truth instead of people who only tell you what makes you feel good. Find people who are further ahead in areas where you want to grow, but while you are looking for those people, don't go empty-handed. Bring your own value to the relationship. Bring your skill, your time, your ideas, your energy, your willingness to work or something else that genuinely makes the relationship useful to both of you.
The strongest relationships are rarely built around one person constantly taking while another person constantly gives. They are built when two people realize that they both have something valuable to contribute. You may know something I don't know, while I know something you don't know. You may have access to an opportunity I need, while I have a skill that can help you take advantage of it. That is how friendships become partnerships, how colleagues become collaborators and how students eventually become peers.
So don't be afraid of outgrowing people. Just make sure that as you outgrow some relationships, you are also becoming the kind of person worthy of the relationships you are trying to enter.
Don't spend your whole life asking, "Who can help me?" Learn to ask, "Who can I grow with, and what can I bring to the table?"
Because the goal isn't to have hundreds of friends. The goal is to build relationships where both people become better because they met.
Sometimes growing up simply means having the courage to leave an old room without insulting the people who are still sitting inside it. You are not necessarily better than them. You may simply be entering another room.
Just make sure that when you get there, you have something valuable to contribute.
My name is Favour Egbe - EFIC . I am a technology professional, digital strategist, entrepreneur, and a student of people, ideas, and opportunities. This is simply me documenting some of the things I am learning along the way. There is a lot more to come.
