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