Who is a friend?
What does it take to be a friend?
What is friendship?
WHO IS A FRIEND?
They say a friend sticks closer than a brother. True enough but do we have such friends? Who really are we suppose to call our friends? Personally I think the word “friend” has seriously been abused. The people you think most times, that you care about actually do not care about you as such mostly they tend to care about somebody else more than you think.
My own definition of a friend is being somebody or having somebody whom in spite of “whatever” you can trust confide with knowing by so doing you will feel better. A friend is someone you are convinced of, that when the worst comes, will never leave or neglect you; someone you can share you happiness and your pain without any invitation or complaint.
In my definition I made use of the word whatever in quote. It is a very known attitude or behavior that people come around when you are famous, rich, influential, generous, charismatic, beautiful, handsome, intelligent to mention but a few. It’s a good factor though when considering someone to be your friend but it should be the only reason why you make friends. If you think deeply, ask yourself if you take away the money, the fame, the beauty, and the intelligence what do you have left for that person? Think about it.
By wanting someone to be your friend you must be friend worthy of the title. Remember this always.
What does it take to be a friend?
Like I said earlier to have a friend you must be worthy of the title. However, you should know that people differ in personality and in character. Sometimes the person you may want to make a friend might not have all the characters that you may like, does that makes you stop wanting to be close to them? Most times No! {Except you really did not like them enough}, RATHER it makes you more curious about them. This curiosity is the foundation of love.
You cannot have a friend that you cannot love. Yes. You must have to like the person first to be able to want to go close. This will grow deeper to the love that exists between friends. Mostly people usually dismiss love from friendship because they probably do not understand it. Often times we make friends based on societal background, beauty, fame, connections, and money influence to mention but a few, forgetting that those factors are only temporary what happens when they are no more? Yea friendship dies.
If you have a friend that you love automatically you will feel more at ease to trust that person although it is not expected of you to just give out that trust it is earned. A time will come when trust will be the only thing that will save you from a very deep mess.
Be truthful in character let your word be your word be straightforward as those elements builds trust between friends.
Eventually loyalty will step in unknowingly you automatically can confidently vouch for your friend. This is the most important stronghold of confidence between two people it is the strongest brick in maintaining trust. If you have a good friend that you cannot confidently vouch for I must say that friendship is just for name sake.
Do you have respect for your friend? Yes apart from sharing each other’s sorrows and joy you have to respect yourselves. By respect you appreciate your friend. Every little deed should not be taken for granted, learn to say sorry when you wrong and I love you more than you normally do with words and by actions. Respect adds value to your friend and your relationship.
What is friendship?
Two years in Lagos I remember walking along the streets of Ikeja one cool evening enjoying the quite scenery of the estate where I lived, I saw a man sitting on a bench at the bus stop staring listlessly at the air ignoring everything around him. Out of curiosity I sat by him, wondering if I should disturb his thoughts or pretend I never noticed him like he would have wanted but, my curiosity compelled by my genuine concern got the better of me, before I knew it I found myself asking this strange man what was bothering him. At first he looked as though he had not heard me. After waiting for some seconds I began to take my leave suddenly I felt a tug on my sleeves I turned to see that this strange man was willing me to sit down. I sat down. He paused for some minutes more still looking at the air; I on the other hand was already getting impatient deciding already in my mind to leave him to his mysterious gazing at the air he if I had to wait one second more that was when he cleared his throat and began to speak. He said to me “I got a call this morning as I was going to work that my friend Chinedu slept and did not wake up this morning”. I looked at him carefully now noticing that he was truly dressed in his office wear his briefcase was by his side I wondered if he got to the office at all. He went on telling how close he and Chinedu had been and how devastated he was. While I tried to say some words of consolation, to him he frantically pointed at two adolescent boys riding on a bicycle together laughing at a joke one of them might have said, staring at them, with grief choking his words he said to me “we have been friends since I was seven”…
Walking back home I remember I had a deep thought about friendship having felt the pain and sorrow of that man to have lost his friend, I realized that if I should lose a friend not necessarily in death I might not feel the anguish, like this man did for his friend Chinedu.
Since then I began to search for the meaning of the word friendship, what it really means practically so far, have gotten a lot of definitions from different opinions of people that I have had the opportunity to speak with. Generalizing it together I would say friendship refers to the relationship between two persons based on love, respect and trust. The love between friends is devoid of any erotic emotions, it is the pheos type of love.
Friendship is a long time affair although now it seems that only existed in the days of our fathers as now young people rarely commit themselves in friendship; usually it is a give and take scenario. As we know Rome was not built in a day, friendship takes time, tolerance, patience, love and trust for it to nurture well.
Don’t go in and out of friendship it’s like you falling in and out of love were at the end someone gets hurt. Be sure before you call somebody your friend that you and they have been found worthy of the title “FRIEND”.
Friendship is the soul connection between two people causing them to have strong emotional feelings for themselves which is non erotic. The absence of friends can be emotionally damaging in the life of an individual, especially the adolescents {young adults}.
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