What you need to know:
- Building relationships with people is hard work.
- True friendships are difficult to find.
The saying, ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’, holds true. This is a phrase that is very familiar to all of us. It is also true in most cases. Since it was the International Day of Friendship on July 30, I would like to share my thoughts on friendship.
Friendship, like someone once said, is a plant that must often be watered. We must nourish and uphold this important value in order to live with happiness. True friendship is not built over a day. It is a building that rises slowly, but steadily, on the concrete foundations of love, respect, understanding and kindness. And that is why our first friends are our parents and siblings. This friendship gradually extends to our classmates and teachers. In a world where wars and crises are common, friendship comes like a sweet lullaby amidst all the commotion.
It is the key that breaks the chains of poverty and abuse, and opens the doors to a world of peace and harmony. Like US president Abraham Lincoln once said: “The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend... If friendship is your weakest point, then you are the strongest person in the world.”
However, we must be careful in choosing our friends. True friends are lifetime companions. Philosopher Aristotle rightly said that a true friend is one soul in two bodies. We must be wise in choosing our friends because, according to Aesop, a man is known by the company he keeps. We need to take time to judge people and see if they are right for us. Bad friendship can spoil our lives, while good friendship can inspire us and help us grow into better human beings. So, we must be careful, especially in today’s world.
It is not enough that we forward the same inspirational messages to hundreds of people on World Friendship Day. Rather, every day must be like a friendship day in our lives. True friends are those individuals we can turn to in times of dilemma and conflict.
- The reader is a student at a Dubai-based school.
