Skip to main content

THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP

Hi, I’m Sam,

 


"No man is an island" I have never been able to relate this quote or saying to family relationships, I always subconsciously relate it to relationships formed outside of family ties but thinking about it now, it works for every kind of relationship we form or have. Everyone needs someone all the time, maybe not physically but we do. No one has survived alone, in as much as there are things we would rather do on our own or things that we need to handle on our own.


To some individuals, friendship is a dicey topic to discuss because they have been burned so badly that they don't even want to have such conversations or even get themselves into anything called "Friendship". These people just end up developing shallow Friendships with people because they know that the deeper you go in the more painful the hurt will be. This is a defense mechanism but the real-life thing is that the moment we decide to give love a chance in our lives, no matter what sort of love that is, we are also giving the chance of getting hurt pretty bad a chance as well. But because there's a chance that you will be hurt doesn't mean you shouldn't love; the ups and downs of life are what makes living worth living.

 

 I have always considered friendship as a two-way street； you don't have to wait for anyone to move before you move meaning that you are always allowed to act of your genuine feelings for your true friends. If you know that if you do something it will make your friend happy, do it, don't stop to think if your friend has done anything sweet for you in recent times. We show up for our friends does not only apply to physically showing up. It means we will happily and without questions be anything for our friends so long as it is what they truly need and it will always help them. We are different individuals and we go through different phases in our lives at different times. Our task as friends is to know our friends enough to know when and how to show up; even in doubt, you can always ask. Don't make assumptions for them.

 

 The shocking thing about me is that I invest as much in my friendships as I do in a romantic relationship. I don't know how to use the word “friend” loosely. It means so much to me and I will correct anyone who tries to use the word for me when that is not the case. As an individual, you have all the right, power, and authority to choose the energy you surround yourself with, and don't be afraid to adjust the energy level either. You will be doing yourself a favor and those around you too. When the energy is right, everyone around you will thrive in whichever way they need to thrive. You have a purpose and no matter how we choose to look at it, our friends play a huge role in whether or not we achieve our purpose. Surrounding ourselves with the right people to achieve our goals and purpose does not only relate to employees; the right friends will help you polish your ideas, keep you accountable, and will always be there to encourage and remind you why you started in the first place.

 

 Contrary to what a lot of people would say, there is so much to gain and enjoy from a genuine friendship. I continue working hard and feel freshly inspired every day by my friends. I have 2 best friends (male and female) and we are all into very different things and somehow we inspire each other effortlessly. We take something from each other and implement it in our different fields and it always works out. This eliminates competition and I truly believe that even if we were in the same industry there wouldn't still be any competition because we know for a fact that we are all on different paths and assignments in life. We go through intense emotions and feelings every day, they might be good feelings or not-so-great feelings, our friends are there to walk with us through the dark alleyway and also there to jump and scream with us in our happy days and still help to keep us grounded.

 

 One thing I struggled with for a long time when it comes to friendships was finding the line between being fully supportive and when to give tough love. It is very possible to overdo any of those or even the both of them and it can make the friendship become rocky because its either one friend does not like to be called out so often, that if they try to address it with you, sometimes it might cause rift because you think you're giving your friend tough love and not coming from a bad place but the way your friend is receiving it, its definitely not giving "tough love" and sometimes if they decide not to address you overdoing the tough love or supportive thing, they may unknowingly begin to resent you because if you're overdoing the supportive act they may begin to think you're not their friend after all because you can see them wasting their lives and making terrible decisions and you don't want to call them back; meanwhile in your mind you think you're being supportive or if you're overdoing the tough love, they start to think that this person might just be an enemy in disguise because why does everything they do somehow become a problem to you. Finding the balance in relationships is always the tricky part of relationships and finding that balance is not always easy but it’s very much possible. 


With serious communication and genuine love, you will always figure it out. Just like with my best friends, we always know when to take a few minutes to chill before we talk about a sensitive matter. Those few minutes help us relax and not be hyped up on emotions and when the emotions are settled we have a better chance of picking the right words to explain ourselves better and understand one another. In most cases, it doesn't matter what I'm saying but how it's understood and I can only be certain of the understanding when I get a feedback from my friend. It's not always about answering "yes" to the question "Do you understand?" You have to give me more than that so that I can be very certain that you were able to communicate my ideas. Don't be rigid. Always have an open mind to try to understand things from various points of view; give others the benefit of the doubt you would like to be given. Life comes in waves, sometimes you will be on the giving side and sometimes you will be on the receiving side, you cannot function properly on the receiving side while putting on your giving armor.

 


 

Good friends are like siblings we choose

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GREEN SUNSET (Aurora Borealis Green)

Hi, I'm Sam,  Some may argue that the expectation of something makes the emotions less intense, which is probably the reason why so many people will admit that they love surprises, because they have no other choice but to react in the most genuine way possible for them. It is a fact and I know that the sun sets every single day in my region, at this point it is something I expect to happen but I don't look out for it, I only take note when it delays or probably doesn't happen which I have never experienced. Because I expect it to happen, I'm no longer fascinated by it. One of the hills I will gladly die on is that, there's no right or wrong way to grieve. There's no manual to it, you only react to the exact way you feel and depending on your emotional strength, you can suppress some emotions and control your actions. In several cases, no one plans for death, so all you have to do is react to it. You don't get to pick when and who it happens to, so you'r...
Post a Comment
Read more

I LOVED TO BE CHOSEN

Hi, I'm Sam,  The wonderful thing about connection is that its not premeditated, you don't plan out how to get connected to someone. You can play by your rules and do things a certain way to create connections with someone and the truth is that if the connection is there, you'll know and when it's not there, there's absolutely nothing you can do to get it. Another thing can be that you're looking for the connection from the wrong angle. Its ok to have the desire to connect with someone from one angle, but when that angle doesn't work, you can either try another angle or let it go completely. Before I was chosen, someone looked at me and assessed me based on a list of requirements or was fascinated by what made me unique. Something that wasn't easily identified in someone else as it is identified in me made me stand out and something that otherwise made someone else unattractive, made me attractive in a way I probably wouldn't be able to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

DID YOU HAVE FUN?

Hi, I'm Sam,  I don't announce it every 3 business days but I'm a Homebody. This was something I found particularly hard to accept because I was the liveliest kid in my family and everyone just concluded I was an extrovert. I changed when I was about 15 or 16 and by 18 my sister concluded that I was either depressed or battling with inferiority complex and I thought about it for a few days and immediately accepted that as the logical explanation to what was happening to me. I accepted that logic because I really loved how lively and outgoing I was growing up and I desperately wanted to go back to that, so if I know the problem, maybe I can find a solution and get my old self back. One of the most annoying things with people pointing out something about you is that when they do, whether they're just being plain mean or critiquing objectively, most times, you're bound to see what they're saying and then the battle within starts. The battle where you t...
Post a Comment
Read more