The best way to have a good friend is to be a good friend. A friend is a friend till the very end. At least that is what many believe. You can always tell when your friend is genuine. They invest the most precious thing they have in you, themselves, and their time. Everyone needs someone in their life they can relate to, confide in, trust to keep their secrets, provide a shoulder when they are sad, and laugh with them when they are glad. We like to call these special people friends. Most people take friendship very seriously, they treasure it and honor it. To these people losing a friend is as bad if not worse than losing a sibling, parent, or even a pet. It is heartbreaking to them. Some look at friendship like most everything else in their lives. As long as it is working out for them, benefiting them in some way then it’s great. But let them grow weary of it, let that friend start drawing attention away from them if only for a moment, and they are done. Like a hot knife through butter, they cut all the strings that once connected them like a lifeline. And like water off a duck’s back, it means nothing to them. You can bet however that it meant something to the other friend. They are devastated, heartbroken, and have fallen into pieces. They are lost and confused, no matter how hard they try, they just cannot wrap their mind around what has happened. After all, they were friends. Friends that loved each other, helped each other, confided in each other, sharing all that is good and bad in each of their lives with each other. Now suddenly for no real reason at all, their friendship means nothing. All that they shared means nothing. All the hugs, all the times they said I love you mean nothing. It is enough to send a compassionate soul into a deep depression. Too many friendships are a vital part of their life. Friendship helps to strengthen their confidence in themselves. Friendship gives them a sense of being needed and wanted. Friendship makes them feel important, special, and loved. Some take friendship so seriously that the loss of it sends them so deep into depression they no longer even have a desire to live. Sadly, many don’t. If you wish only to be an acquaintance in someone’s life that is fine. Just be sure to keep it that way. Don’t embark into friendship territory. Don’t ask your acquaintance if you can trust them to keep a secret. Don’t hold them embraced in a hug and tell them that you love them. Don’t tell them how happy you are to have them in your life. Don’t use their love and compassion to comfort you when you are sad and hurt. Don’t you use them to support your activities and help them grow? Don’t you do all this and then kick them down over some trivial crap that is completely meaningless. You save that for the acquaintance, you know the ones that don’t mean that much to you. In truth, if you treat anyone like that shame on you. No one, friend or not deserves to be talked down on, picked on, mistreated in any way especially for something so childish and trivial that the overwhelming majority would simply laugh at it. Friendship, truly loyal, and lasting friendship is extremely rare and hard to find. Before you let something stupid, trivial, and even childish come between you and your friend maybe you need to stop and think about it. Maybe you need to ask yourself if your actions are going to be worth the consequences? Maybe you need to ask yourself if you are going to lose far more than you will ever gain? Maybe you need to ask yourself if this is how you would want your friend, that you love and confide in treating you? If you can’t be a good friend, at least be a human being with compassion for others, respect for others, and some level of integrity.
Simply my Thoughts
Dean Butler
