“No Man Is an Island”, this line extracted from Meditation XVII, by English poet John Donne has been a very popular expression when talking about people’s connection to one another. Indeed, there is nobody who can live alone on this planet. That is why God created a different form of relationship, such as friendship. Friendship is one of the greatest forms of relationship that everyone will surely want to have.
To be able to understand what friendship is, you must look at its definitions and reasons for its importance and goodness. For this, you can refer to the great and famous philosopher Aristotle. A lot of philosophers give emphasis conjecture and theory. For sure, Aristotle has contributed to this kind of philosophy as well. He has given great emphasis on the reasons why friendship is essential.
According to him, no one will ever opt to live without friends. This notion from Aristotle is indeed very significant because he emphasizes that even though people with all other possessions, being really rich and having offices, and holding dominating power are considered to be, most of all in need of friends. He even added that what would be the use of those prosperities without having the chance to beneficence that can be practiced mainly and on its most worthy form to friends.
Aside from being able to benefit, friends will help you guard and preserve your prosperity. Friends are more worthy and beneficial to men in misfortunes and in poverty, for they can consider their friends as their only refuge. “Friendship is as important as life itself”, is a statement given by Aristotle powerful and bold. Friendship covers old and young, poor and rich. It covers the breadth of the kinds of people you find within society.
In fact, rich men are considered to need friends the most, for being rich contains no value except when they have someone or some people to share their wealth with. Not to mention the fact that friendship can definitely reduce risk. This should be true because when the time comes that you meet an unexpected occurrence, you can always seek some assistance from your true friends. This results in unfortunate men who could benefit from friends during times of misfortune and poverty.
However, the most important of all other facts are that friendship could stimulate a person to righteous actions. By joining with your friends, you will be able to have favorable thoughts and act accordingly. There is always something really special with the feeling of friendship making you desire to act. A person should acquire that sense of delight whenever giving assistance to his friends although it is not usually a joyful task.
With friends, you always give the best shot of everything you are sharing together. With this idea, you can already think that friendship improves your life because it makes you a better individual. In trying to serve your friends, you always get to benefit from it by improving yourself. These facts alone could offer you what it gets to have your friends around and build the most trustworthy friendship.
Identify where your friendships have issues
Making and keeping good friends is indeed a great thing to consider. Both or all of you share laughter and tears during your life. However, it can never be avoided to have issues with your friendships. Yes, it can give you worth feelings when you are facing issues with your friends. That is why knowing and understanding where your friendships have issues is very important. If you know the reasons behind these issues, it will become easy for you to resolve them.
It is almost as difficult to simplify friendship issues as it is to identify how to resolve them. There are a few issues that might sound similar or contain particular elements in common, yet in terms of going about the details; each friendship contains a unique trajectory in accordance to the different mix of circumstances, history, and personalities. Whenever a serious issue crops up with your friends, it is normally disappointing, unexpected, and very inconvenient to deal with.
The main key to dealing with these issues is communication. However, at most times, many people are at a loss of things to say or to move forward during a sticky situation. There are different situations where friendship issues may arise. Time is one of the most essential elements of maintaining a good friendship. However, when you or your friend is very busy with his work or any other related factors, issues might not be avoided to arise.
This is especially painful if you are used to seeing each other. If your friend is too busy with work, you won’t be sure if you could count on him/her during hard times or when you have something special to attend to. This can put some stains on your friendship. If you wish to fix such kind of issue, it will be very helpful to let your friend know how you feel about your situation.
Let him/her know that you are upset. Considering this may give some ideas to your friend on what to do if he/she really wishes to treasure what both of you have. With this, you can at least make your friend aware by being honest to him/her of what you feel. Another issue that might arise on friendship is having and living separate lives when in fact both used to be attached at the hip. It could be very unusual if you and your friend were once very attached to each other and yet now don’t know the rights words to utter.
Both of your lives might have gone so different that your friendship is not what it really once was. Friendship has its ups and downs, and some of them may last forever. Know if it possible for you to identify what is wrong by having talk with your friend about it. If there is something about her, you or perhaps both of you have changed; you can try maintaining a distant connection and not completely cutting off your friendship.
Excerpted from the book Friend Fundamentals.
This excerpt has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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