Friendship | What qualities should we look for in our friends
Hello readers,
A very happy new month to all my fellow Hiveans and as we all expected, a brand new prompt calendar has already been published on @leogrowth containing a different and unique topic to write a post about every day. For the first day of June, they have chosen a great topic, Friendship and what values you seek in a friend. So today, I will be talking about my experience and thoughts regarding this amazing topic and thanks to Inleo for this initiative and for giving us the chance to explore unique topics like this one. So without further ado, let’s jump into the topic and allow me to share my view with you all.
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‘Friendship’ - a word that connects two or more distinct people into one without any blood relation or mutual benefits. Friendship is a big thing, as after our parents or life partner, friends are our closest ones with whom we share our thoughts and emotions and spend countless times enjoying their company. I am sure all of you have friends and whether you want to go to a party or a vacation tour, learn something new or play games, need some help with something or want to chill doing any activities- the one you always call is your friends. In our lifetime, friends fill the void that our parents or even life partners can't fill and friends are the ones with whom you can share any problem without thinking twice.
If you are fortunate enough in your life to get a true friend, believe me, you have got a blessing in disguise. Because in this harsh world, not everyone gets fortunate enough to get true friends who will stand beside you in all times and will not just be there in your good times and leave you when you are in bad shape. Every one of our lives is a unique storybook that defines us truly and while everybody thinks they are the hero of their story, they may be acting as bad characters in other’s stories.
Talking about myself, This mango is getting yellow, as I have reached 30 this year and in all these years, I have made many friends since elementary school, high school, college, locals and also here on the hive. Since childhood, I used to interact more with my friends than with my parents or even my wife, and that is still happening in my case. I also consider myself fortunate to have a handful of friends who are actually good-hearted and for myself, I also try to be a good friend for all of them as well.
What I found in a friend
When the friendship is still in its early stages, I think that you should not judge them and instead, take your time to know the person well. We should learn about our new friend’s likes and dislikes, mindset and how he or she treats other people around including us. In my school and college days, I made contact with a good number of people and hung out with them but only with a few of them, I was able to build and continue friendships. So first of all, I think we should give everybody a chance at the first stage and should not be judgemental about their appearance or anything else. But as time passes and you start to know your friends, you may see some characteristics in your new friends that you like or don't like and depending on that, you should choose whether to continue your friendship or move on. Let me give some examples that I personally do after having a mixed experience in this matter and hope that it helps you pick probably better friends I will just talk about red flags here. If you see any of these red flags in your pal, you should think twice about your friendship.
EMPATHY
First of all, is your friend empathetic? Does he or she understand the feelings of others? Any empathetic person would be kinder than others and not only he or she will stand by you on tour bad days, but he will also think twice before doing anything that causes others mental pain.
TRUST
Next, is your friend trustworthy? This is even more important because in my life, I had some bad experiences with friends who literally broke my trust for their personal gain or used me in the name of friendship and later dumped me. Now it will be hard to understand whether your friend is a green check or not in this matter but focus on how he behaves with his other friends and if he has any history of such kind. If you get anything such, I would suggest going away from that person.
JEALOUSY
Jealousy would be the third characteristic I would look for in a friend and thou a little bit of jealousy is okay, whenever you see this characteristic taking over all other things, that friend of yours may be a toxic person. People generally don't express their jealousy for you when you are present but if you see your friend expressing it even for somebody else in front of you, that means he or she may get jealous of you as well and probably discuss it with others when you are not present.
ENCOURAGEMENT
Last but not least, Encouragement is a good characteristic that I would look for in my friends because in our life, every one of us faces countless hurdles and obstacles. But if we get supportive friends who encourage and motivate us to overcome these hurdles and help us win challenges, there’s nothing more we can ask for. Whether you are studying anything hard or are recovering from a break-up, dealing with any particular issues or practicing for any competitive thing - if your friend is supporting you and energizing you with good words and boosting your self-confidence, the hold on to that friend and never ever let them go away from you.
SELF EVALUATION
While looking for good characteristics in your friends, I would also suggest looking for and building such characteristics in yourself so that you also become a good friend material. It is always easy to judge others but when it comes to judging ourselves, we generally avoid it. But unknowingly we sometimes may start developing the same characteristics that we hate to see in others. So it is always a good practice to self-evaluate and become a better person.
I hope you liked reading my post about friendship and what qualities we should look for in our friends. Let me know your thoughts and opinions as well in the comment section below and I will be seeing you all in my next post.
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