THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP

Wisdom Nugget:  "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother."

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One of the greatest gifts given to mankind is, The Gift of Friends. We are all products of relationships and as the popular sage goes, "No man is an Island". You cannot be friends with everybody but you must be a friend to somebody. 

Rodney Dangerfield wrote: "Once I told my old man, 'Nobody likes me.' He said, 'Don't say that - everybody hasn't met you yet."

Leonard Syme, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley, indicates the importance of social ties and social support systems in relationship to mortality and disease rates. He points to Japan as being number one in the world with respect to health and then discusses the close social, cultural, and traditional ties in that country as the reason. He believes that the more social ties, the better the health and the lower the death rate. Conversely, he indicates that the more isolated the person, the poorer the health and the higher the chances of dying. Social ties are good preventative medicines for physical problems and for mental-emotional-behavior problems.

Who therefore is a friend? Friends are people with whom you dare to be yourself. Your soul can be naked with them. They ask you to put on nothing, only to be what you are. They do not want you to be better or worse. When you are with them, you feel as a prisoner feels who has been declared innocent. You do not have to be on your guard. You can say what you think, as long as it is genuinely you. Friends understand those contradictions in your nature that lead others to misjudge you. With them you breathe freely. You can avow your little vanities and envies and hates and vicious sparks, your meannesses and absurdities, and in opening them up to friends, they are lost, dissolved on the white ocean of their loyalty. They understand. You do not have to be careful. You can abuse them, neglect them, tolerate them. Best of all, you can keep still with them. It makes no matter. They like you. They are like fire that purges to the bone. They understand. You can weep with them, sing with them, laugh with them, pray with them. Through it all - and underneath - they see, know, and love you. A friend? What is a friend? Just one, I repeat, with whom you dare to be yourself. (C. Raymond Beran, in Bits & Pieces, September 19, 1991, p. 3-4.)

George Eliot said "Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts, nor measure words, but to pour them all out just as they are, chaff and grain together knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."

Friendship is reciprocal and you will find a true friend more useful to you in life than your biological brother.

Two men were out hunting in Northern U.S.A. Suddenly one yelled and the other looked up to see a grizzly charging at  them. The first started to frantically put on his tennis shoes and his friend anxiously asked, "What are you doing? Don't you know you can't outrun a grizzly bear?" "I don't have to outrun a grizzly bear. I just have to outrun you".