Posted by By J E Solomon
We all need to have friends or companions with whom to socialize and share our dreams, hopes and to discuss problems; people in whom we can confide and not have to worry about how we may be perceived. No individual can claim to be an island to himself and choose to live a solitary life forever without relating with anyone.
It is, therefore, remarkable that certain days have been set aside every year to honor the people in our lives we consider as friends. The first Sunday of August is celebrated as International Friendship Day. And today, August 15, being the third Sunday of August, is Women’s Friendship Day.
Friends, true friends, are important in our lives for several reasons. We need trusted friends for comfort and support in times of difficulties and, especially when faced with adversities. Very often we tend to rely more on our true friends for advice and support when confronted with some of life’s unexpected challenges.
Blood relations such as siblings, cousins and even parents do not always provide the kind of relationship that is the mark of true friendship. And even where close family ties manifest in the form of best friends, invariably the individuals involved still have their personal dearest friends.
Ben Adams, a 50-year-old married healthcare employee with two children, admitted that there were some personal issues he normally felt more comfortable to discuss with his best friend, Andrew, that he never considered mentioning to any of his four siblings, or his wife of 24 years. He said Andrew has been his most trusted confidant and that their mutual trust has survived for well over 35 years.
Adams was not the only person to admit that his most trusted friend is not related to him by blood. Everyone of my interviewees claimed to have such close ties to someone with whom they could share very personal matters they would definitely not discuss with their own relatives.
What makes one friend more likeable and trustworthy than another friend? How come it is so easy to gain friends but, interestingly, too difficult to maintain a lifetime friendship? “It’s human nature,” so we often hear.
The fact is people change as they age. Our dreams and desires also change as we journey through life. Sometimes unexpected favorable opportunities like a big lottery win, a career change and its resultant relocation could all affect friendship and weaken its foundation over time if not maintained. Marriage and parental commitments could also become speed bumps on hitherto smooth friendship lanes. A very close friend who ventures into politics and suddenly finds himself holding a security-sensitive position is less likely to hang out freely with his most loyal friends as he is used to.
But true friendship, regardless of distance, is never really weakened. It could always remain strong. A true friend will never turn his/her back on you when you need his or her support. Such a friend will not employ tricks or duplicitous actions in order to gain unfair advantage or profit in his dealings with you. And also, a true friend will not blow out your luminous candlelight (your integrity and credibility) just so that his light alone will shine brightly.
He will protect your interests with the same zeal with which he will jealously guard his own interests. A true friend views an injury to you as an injury to himself. And even if you either knowingly or unknowingly inflict a wound on a true friend, he will be too willing to forgive you if you show remorse in good faith. A true friend knows that “the wound from a friend is better than thousand kisses from an enemy.”
A true friend rejoices not only in his personal successes and achievements, but is equally excited and will rejoice at the successes of his friends too. He will have no room is his heart for enviness and jelousy.
If you have to share precious time with so-called friends or companions around whom you constantly have to be careful and somewhat vigilant, people around whom you can not say things like they are, as raw and courageously frank as can be without fear, then they are not worthy of being described as true friends. If you have a Judas for a friend, expect betrayal; if your friend is an Ananias or a Sapphira, surely you will not be spared deception and lies.
Confidence in a true friend is hardly based on wealth, power or influence. It comes from the unique ability to recognize, without doubt, the honest and undisguised intentions of people we usually relate with. It is then, and only then that we can feel safe to trust them and, in turn, be trusted.
To all those who are fortunate to have such true friends, may you never lose the joy of such rare friendship, and to all those loyal and honest friends out there, may God richly bless you, and may your lives forever shine to express life’s goodness through your ever selfless, sincere and thoughtful ways.