“Friend” A title often used and cheaply given. One mostly awarded to unworthy personalities!

     You may start wondering, if friendship is this beautiful, why then are there so many stories of awful experiences/betrayals from so called friends? This takes me to the issue of us giving out the title “Friend” too easily and cheaply. After a few “hellos” with some persons, you go ahead and start introducing them as “my friend”. Ignorant of the fact that, there is a clear and broad difference between a “Friendly person” and a “Friend”. (This will be discussed in my next post). These betrayals are proof that you brought the wrong persons close. You classified them wrongly. They were just “Friendly foes”.

     Out of curiosity you may also wonder, those who committed suicide or ever attempted it, did they really lack a friend to confide in? Oh wait a minute! They had a lot of persons they could easily introduce as a friend, but on the actual sense, these persons were equally unworthy of that title.

     There are quite a lot of researches that attempt’ linking friendship and health, but the precise connection still remains unknown. Existing theories have included that good friendship improves health; that good friends encourage their friends to lead more healthy lifestyles; that good friends encourage their friends to seek help and access services when needed; that good friends enhance their friends’ coping skills in dealing with illness and other health problems; that good friends affect physiological pathways that are protective of health.

     Aristotle enlightens us that humans are quite political in nature. They set up relationships for their own personal gain. He argues that there are 3 types of friend:

Such friends do not love each other in themselves, but in so far as there is something they benefit from each other. Man loves their friend for his own good and not for the good of his friend.

Examples: friendship between old people, business partners, classmates.

Similar to the “friend of Utility”, in the friendship of pleasure, persons love their friend not the sake of the friend, but for the sake of the pleasure received.

Examples: friends who share same hobbies, drinking buddies or love affairs.

According to Aristotle, this is the perfect form of friendship, as it is a kind of friendship between the good and those who resemble each other in virtue. Here, a friend wishes the other good in respect of his own goodness, and they are good in themselves.

     A “Friend of Utility” and “Friend of Pleasure” may stay in your life, but for a prize. The disadvantage of these two kinds of friendships is that, they are unstable and constantly subject to abrupt change which dissolves the friendship. Such friendships are too expensive to keep are not permanent.

But, a “Friend of Good” possesses the virtue of a true friend and “Virtue is a permanent quality”. The friendship amongst the good is profitable to each other. Such friendship is naturally permanent.

Personally, I’ve always believed FRIENDSHIP to be the most important amongst all RELATIONSHIPS ( friendship, courtship).

When you find yourself a victim of betrayals from people you wrongly called “Friends”, you must never give in for regrets. Rather, give thanks to God, and then thank them for revealing their true self.

I pray you find and build the right friendship with virtuous persons henceforth…

WISHING YOU ALL A PROSPEROUS NEW-YEAR AHEAD!

Iam_peaceaghedo…………………………………………………………writing is my passion!