Sometimes comparing can be a good thing: it can inspire us to work harder and reach farther. But for the most part, excessive measuring yourself up against others - especially when it becomes a way to put yourself down - is a colossal waste of time. It's a dead end. It won't make you do anything except feel horrible.

More Quotes by Rachel Simmons

A healthy friendship is one where you share your true feelings without fearing the end of the relationship. It's also one where you sometimes have to let things that bug you slide. The tough moments will make you wiser about yourself and each other. They will also make you stronger and closer as friends.

When girls can be honest with each other, they can make mistakes on their own terms and discover through experience - and not through knee-jerk adult intervention - what a healthy friendship should look like.

There are times in every friendship when you or your friend are too busy to call or are more focused on other relationships. It will hurt, but it's rarely personal. Making it personal usually makes things worse, and being too clingy or demanding can drive a friend even further away. Like people, friendships can get 'overworked' and need to rest.

There are no shortcuts to genuine friendship. Relationships are built over time.

If you want to stand with me as a single mom - and I know so many of my friends and colleagues do - please don't appropriate my burden as a way to validate your own. To suggest that you are single-parenting when you are simply solo for the weekend devalues what real single mothers do.

Girls may love movies about fairytale princes, but their most captivating romance is with their friends.