Friends

Even though we use the term friends as a term of endearment to describe many people in our lives, we often have a hard time knowing what a friend really is. Psychologist mark friend as those who accept each other, with plus and minuses, confide in each other and feel responsible for each other.

“A real friend walks in when rest of the world walks out.’ ’Says Walter Winchell.

In today’s world we depend on friends more and more for support, which the family used to provide; emotional and sometime financial. With people living away from their family and so many people single even till the age of 30, friends become the support.

Friendship can happen anytime. Sometimes married partners are like friends. Sometimes warring sisters who fought throughout life can become friends in later life. Sometimes mother –daughter become the best friends. Friendship is on par with marriage and kinship in relationship. Yet it can be the most neglected. We make no vows to friends, yet we have great expectations: understanding, caring, concern. We expect a friendship to last forever.

How do we make a friendship blossom, grow and survive? It requires more attention, skill than we thought. So, ’’the only way to have a friend is to be one’’, Says Waldo Emerson. Becoming a friend involves sharing, confidentiality and openness with the need of being protective of each other’s feeling. It goes out of balance if the intensity is one sided. It’s the listening and sharing which makes friendship last. ‘’A friend is one who believes in you when you have ceased to believe in yourself."

What we should not do in friendship? Backbiting, neglecting, criticizing,boasting all the time, expecting the other to be on your beck and call,  not giving any space, not responding, revealing  their secrets , taking the other for granted ,not caring and hurting each other’s feeling are the impediment to friendship. Such a one can not last and when it breaks, it will hurt and snap forever.

Increasingly it is seen that gender does not matter in friendship. Sexes are interacting more today at work and socially.

Can a hurt friendship be mended? If u feel a close friend has hurt you , it’s worthwhile to sit down and say;’’ as I care for you , I want to sort this out’’. Then calmly talk about it and clear the misunderstanding. What we normally do is to sulk, shut up and brood. Such behavior will take you farther away from your friendship. A so called friend who does not show concern during your troubles, cannot be called a real friend. We all know that friend in need is a friend in deed. But how many of us try to put this in action?

   Friendship, as understood here, is a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other's sake, and that involves some degree of intimacy. As such, friendship is undoubtedly central to our lives, in part because the special concern we have for our friends must have a place within a broader set of concerns, including moral concerns, and in part because our friends can help shape who we are as persons.Friends are the most important ingredient in this recipe of life." Therefore hold them tight. Lucky are those who hold a lasting friendship.