If someone asked you to characterize your best friends, what would you say? You could depict them as loyal, trustworthy, loving, reliable, fun, etcetera. In reality, we would all describe our friends with different adjectives; Elbert Hubbard, though, captured what a friend really is in his simple, yet elegant, quote “A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.” We all crave the unconditional acceptance of a true friend, for someone to love us, without the fear of “not being good enough.” Ridiculously high standards are set for us on a daily basis everywhere we go, whether to be smarter, prettier, nicer or just not ourselves. The call to be “perfect,” vanilla duplicates of each other is heard loud and clear across the board. But we all know we have flaws, a combination of flaws really, that are singular to each of us; there is a defining quality made up of every aspect of someone’s personality, both the bad and the good. Every once in a while, a person who appreciates this comes along and alters our perspective of ourselves. Real friends will laugh with you when you’re happy but understand when you make mistakes. Whether it is the lack of a skill or a facet of your character that is not particularly desirable, they will take you as you are and move past the imperfections. And not only will they get over how you actually are but like Hubbard said, they will love you. A true friend will enjoy your company and personality and maybe even grow to love the things that seem imperfect to others. I, personally, appreciate my friends for loving me with all my quirks, my sarcasm and bluntness, my clumsiness and forgetfulness. But also, friends can be eager to congratulate you for your strengths, which can sometimes be even more difficult than accepting flaws. Someone possessing a gift we don’t have can potentially make us envious, or if not jealous it can cause us to compare and think, “Why am I not like that?” Instead of begrudging you of your talents and abilities, real friends are able to celebrate in the parts of you that help you be confident and proud. And even more than that, in times of discouragement a friend will be capable of pointing out the good things about you and raise your spirits. Who doesn’t want someone to tell them they are loved for both their exceptional qualities AND their less than perfect ones too?
You make a good characterization of friendship. One of the key points that sticks out to me is admiration in lieu of envy; how friends are able to genuinely be happy for qualities other friends have, even if they themselves lack them. In my view, a lot of the friendships that develop are between two people who are like minded enough to understand each other and have fun together but at the same time different enough to complement each other’s weak points. It’s like their similarities and admiration for differences simultaneously have an attractive force. Lots of good identifications; they make me thankful for the great friends I have :) I appreciate you! haha
ReplyDeleteI love your characterization of friendship. Friendship is how we make it out to be; there isn't a set definition of friendship. "Real friends will laugh with you when you’re happy but understand when you make mistakes" stood out to me the most because as you mentioned, no one is perfect and our friends embrace and support us with the knowledge of that. As TorDeaTonitrae said, your post makes me thankful all my good friends, Bradetown :)
ReplyDeleteand not to be a troll, but you misspelled friendship X) Buddie :D
ReplyDeleteIndeed, friendship is a multi-faceted thing...one cannot only appreciate what a person does well, they must also understand and accept what that person does not do well. So many "friends" focus on one aspect or the other, and it makes them weaker as a person. Being a friend is a hard thing to do...you must meet a person and KNOW them; learning to know a person is the most dangerous part of human interaction, because you don't know what to expect. But to know someone and still respect them afterwards, that is something few can do...that eing said, sometimes it's excusable. If the person's appreciative quality is that they make amazing cupcakes, then praise will ring from the mountaintops...but if their negative quality is that they enjoy mutilating kittens, well...that's a hard thing to accept yeah? But kudos to the sadist who can accept that trait of another!
ReplyDeleteI don't believe you could have written a better description of what it means to be a friend. All that of which you wrote in this post fits my definition of a friend and there's not one point I don't agree with you on. There's really nothing left for me to say besides substantial post Denielle and may I have my points now Mrs. Hamill?
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the way you describe friendship. No one friendship is alike and that’s because we are all unique in our own ways. It is the things that you see in your friends that you wish you had yourself and you admire them for this reason. Your post makes you feel grateful for having people to be there for you whenever you need them.
ReplyDeleteTenisha wrote the Anonymous post
DeleteI think you captured what every one wants from a friend perfectly. Everyone does have that deep desire to be loved unconditionally by someone else without fear of being scrutinized for every misstep and mistake they want. When people grow up in a world where trusting people can lead to heart ache its nice to have at least one person to be there and let you know that they will continue to be there until the very end.
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