True friendship and false friendship. It’s not that difficult to distinguish one from the other.
Dr. Belisário Marques¹
True friendship and false friendship. It’s not that difficult to distinguish one from the other. Many people worry about going to Heaven, they make sacrifices to receive Heaven as a reward, they strive to one day enjoy the benefits that Heaven can offer. Although it is a good thing to want to go to Heaven and strive to achieve it, there is one thing that can be done on Earth that already anticipates the blessings that will be received in Heaven. It is friendship. Ellen G. White, religious writer, writes in Mind, Character, and Personality, p.211: “The warmth of true friendship, the love that binds heart to heart, is a foretaste of the joys of Heaven.”
It is interesting to pay attention to the quality that is applied to true friendship. True friendship seems to be redundant, but not all friendship is true. There are false, alleged, apparent and superficial friendships. Both have a profound influence on the person who participates in it. True friendship produces joy, endorphins, warmth and life. The so-called friendship acts slowly, like a poison, a drug that immobilizes, freezes and kills all hope of being happy. One is divine and the other is diabolical. You need to choose the type of friend you want to be and have.
In true friendship there is a deepening of the relationship, intimacy, transparency, that is, you increasingly show yourself in your real way of being, without hiding what you think, feel, like, value, prefer, appreciate. There is such an openness that you are not afraid of being discovered, taken by surprise, exposed for what you are, defend or believe. However, when friendship is not true, there is fear of being different in the way of thinking, feeling and acting towards others. In a true friendship, you are accepted, respected, considered, valued, despite your faults, mistakes, deficiencies and limitations. In a relationship like this, the threat, the danger of rejection, criticism, moral judgment of your actions, your convictions or your person are not present. But security is present, the certainty of support, understanding and sympathy.
All me
In true friendship, you experience and experience a relationship of mutual interdependence. You give yourself total dependence and have complete trust in others. At the same time, it maintains self-direction of one’s own life and the autonomy of choices and options to conduct one’s own business and solve one’s own problems. It is not a relationship of intrusion, invasion, interference, but of division, sharing, affection and support. In the interdependence of true friendship, the two support each other, grow with more vigor, more strength and more determination to face the existential problems of each day.
With a real friend, you don’t wait for him to make the first move for you to interact or participate. On the contrary, you are the first to take the risk of trusting, of having faith in the other, of being sure that their intentions are the best. You are the first to provide support, protection, to give whatever is necessary without violating yourself as a person, so that the good of the other is achieved. The relationship is the spontaneous and authentic movement, even without worrying about the order of who is first or who did what. It is this continuous and uninterrupted flow of giving and participation that characterizes true friendship. It doesn’t matter whether or not you are betrayed in your trust; It doesn’t matter whether or not you are rejected from your donation. What matters most is that you remain in control of your own behavior. It even seems like a paradox: to trust, to be betrayed in trust, but to continue trusting.
A person’s betrayal does not undermine trust in human beings. On the other hand, continuing to trust a person who betrayed you is a lack of intelligence, a lot of personal devaluation or low self-esteem.
To each their own
When you allow the other person to think, choose, speak, feel and act for you, in the name of friendship, you can be sure that the relationship is not one of friendship, but one of abuse, disrespect and disregard. He never assumes his position. Whoever does this is not a friend and whoever accepts this is doing very poorly in their assessment of themselves. The person who needs to accept a pseudo-friendship in the name of a real one does not have an adequate vision of what it means to be or have a friend. A person like this, due to their neediness, may be trying to do everything to please, but in fact they can’t and end up becoming more and more needy, more alone. He often redoubles his efforts to please and discovers with sadness that he cannot. Some don’t even understand why.
When friendship is just a source of exhaustion, tiredness, emptiness, when you feel like you have a burden on your shoulders, angry, irritated, when you are away from your friend or away from your friend, your friendship is not doing you any good. It’s not true. If you only feel sacrifice, exhaustion and suffering in the relationship, it’s time to stop and reevaluate the entire dynamic of the friendship. If, when separating from your friend, your spirits are low, your values are discouraged, your conscience is heavy, it is because the relationship is not mutual. You are being harmed. This is because in a true friendship relationship, your individuality is not compromised, your emotional state is strengthened and enriched. But you need to at least be aware of yourself in moments of interaction to see if you are safer, supported, loved and valued.
Solidarity
When I think about true friendship, I remember a friend who went through a fantastic and difficult experience last year, in which a huge sacrifice was made in solidarity and support for a wronged friend. They both worked at a company. Antônio was the director and João was his assistant. The director, for half a day’s work, earned close to ten thousand dollars. He was efficient, honest and hardworking.
Because of his honesty and respect for the hierarchy, he was fired by the company owner. The owner did not know that his director was the soul of the enterprise. Business boomed. To replace him, an assistant with a salary of almost fifteen thousand dollars was invited. Antônio gave up the sacrifice, freeing his friend João to accept the proposal. João went into crisis. He needed the job, but… what about the friendship? And the injustice committed with Antônio? What would João’s mind be like when he received a salary that cost his best friend his head? Days of dilemmas, anguish and worries. Finally, João reached the decision. He renounced his money and his position, preferring to maintain the fidelity of friendship.
True friendship doesn’t always come at such a high price. However, some cynics think that João had other reasons or did not need the money. Quite the contrary, while he is looking for a job, his bills are being paid by his wife’s work and by what he received when he resigned from the company. The only reason that led him to this attitude was his dedication to a true friendship, which João does not give up. What I find most incredible in this case was João’s wife’s support for the action he took.
The initial words that “the warmth of true friendship… is a foretaste of the joys of Heaven” are not meaningless. Anyone who can count on a friend is rich, happy, healthy.
Friendship x Popularity
You cannot confuse friendship with popularity. Often, to become popular, a person needs to sacrifice their principles, their ideals, their convictions and even their own body. It needs to surrender itself to the use and abuse of those who manipulate public opinion. We need to stop being people and become an empty image, without feelings, adored from a distance. Friendship does not require sacrifice, but you can sacrifice yourself, friendship is human warmth in a face-to-face meeting. Promotes the feeling, well-being and happiness of a living person.
True friendship always ennobles growth. Many teenagers and young people, in their lack of affection, yearn for popularity, when what they need most is a true and faithful friendship.
In the inversion of values in which we live, the search for popularity is much more propaganda than friendship. It is very common, in a group, for someone to want to be popular by humiliating and ridiculing a friend – just to get everyone’s attention. It is not surprising that the sequence of this dynamic is a profound feeling of being alone, something experienced by those who do not know the benefits of deep intimacy in a friendship relationship. To be popular is to be lonely, to belong to everyone and to belong to no one. Being a friend means having company and being someone’s.
It’s very easy to know who a true friend is. Just observe and want to understand, just pay attention to the following: the true friend vibrates with your success, while the false friend “withers”; the true friend is excited about his victory, while the false one is discouraged; the real friend rejoices with his gains, while the false one is saddened; the true friend rejoices in his progress, but the false one is cast down; the true friend identifies with his asset, the false friend separates himself from his happiness. A true friend is always by your side, and does not feel harmed, diminished or threatened by your growth. He is not jealous of your advantages, nor does he envy your qualities, he does not use you or what is yours for personal benefits and ends. A true friend does not control you to satisfy his own desires, for personal security. It does not stick to you like glue, nor does it hold you in place like a fish on a hook or an anchor in a boat.
In true friendship, through deep respect for the other, individuality is preserved, separation is maintained, the independent and autonomous entity is preserved, and the integrity of the other’s being is sustained. An important reflection should be: am I a true friend? What kind of friend am I? Am I more concerned about having or being a true friend?
It is in relationships, being and having friends, that as human beings we blossom to reach the maximum potential of which we are capable.
Biblia.com.br Team
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¹Dr. Belisário Marques, Revista Mocidade: January 1994.