I'm glad I can now say "You really have"

I just was questioning a friend who I had cut out of my life for the last 3 months, if she had friends who held her accountable, who challenged her in ways she needed to be challenged in because she had totally lost hope.

I just remembered a conversation I had last year with one of my closest friends, well actually it was more a text fight (didn't live in the same city at the time). My friend raised the question during the fight, "How have I affected your life, you have never listened to any advice I have given you". It was true, and the fight ended with that comment.  It didn't really hit home with me back then because all the advice she had given was through text messages over miss-communications (which is the only reason why those fights started and I'm really glad we don't fight anymore). I'm glad that if she ever asked me that same question I would be easily able to respond "You sure have, and your advice has hit home with me more then any other person in my life".

With that said, if you need to give advice to a friend, try your best to take your friend out for coffee or something that makes it face to face (I know you can't always sometimes you can't because of distance, but for every other time). Make the advice personal, and not from some cellphone LCD screen.