We are social animals and that’s why we need a companion in each and every step of our life. We call them friends. A friend is a one whom we like, know closely and who supports us always. Friends play a bigger role in one’s life. Friends are supposed to support and help each other in times of needs and difficulties. Friendship between the two is supposed to last for a lifetime, no matter of any situation.
Choosing friend is crucial part of our life as the choice of friends decides our destiny and also has great impacts in our lives. Good friends help us to take right decisions, guide our behaviour, and suggest us in proper way in times of need. Whereas, evil or fake friends are always in search of an opportunity to let us down. They are like the snake who bites you back, even though you are feeding it with the milk.
So, we should be very careful in selecting friends. We meet many kinds of peoples in our daily life, in our school or college, in the neighbourhood and at the workplace. We can’t ignore all of them but we should maintain some limits while talking, behaving and interacting with them. Only a few among them can be our friends in a true sense. We should be careful in this matter because if we fail choosing right friends, we might get into problems and even be disturbed mentally.
One old quote equates fake friends as shadows which stick around us during brightness and disappears during our darkest hours. The words of Gautam Buddha, the light of Asia, is sufficient to warn us about false friends. He said, “An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.”
Photo: A painting showing true friendship of Shree Krishna and Sudhama
Not all of them whom we interact daily can be our friends. We should consider many factors before building friendship with a person. We should first know the nature of the person because it highly influences our relation. The friendship can be smooth and pleasant only with those who have similar nature and interests. If possible, we should try to know and analyse the person’s individual and professional background so that we need not face any bad consequences later.
For instance, if a person has some criminal background or is addicted to some evil habits, our friendship with them may put us into problems. Sometimes such consequences may spoil our future also. Hence, one needs to take rational decision while choosing friends.
Today, people have become self-centered and they make or break friend as per their selfishness. We can find various types of fake friends. Some of them are frenemies who actually dislike us but pretend to be a friend. They might hurt us indirectly at times, build conspiracies behind our back and back bite about us with other friends. Some people are friend thieves who make us friends to be friends of our other friends of their interest. They become friends with our other friends taking our help. After being close they will leave us and start meeting separately to fulfill they selfishness. Some people are mooches who become close with us because we are simple and can’t hurt them. They drain our pocketbook and also our patience. They borrow money with us but never remember to return it. Some people build friendship just for time-pass. Some of them proposes us for a friendship with a desire to turn it into the love.
In his famous science fiction novel, The Dervish House, Ian McDonald wrote, “He never looked great but he’s dreadful now, face thin and eyes staring like you see in cartoons of mad imams and hunched over. If that’s what God does to you should pick your friends more carefully.” A fake friend behaves very polite and wise during the beginning of friendship. But, at their proper times, they put us into difficulty. The character in the novel had to face similar situation. It’s true, even in reality.
Every person has positive and negative aspects. If we are trying to build friendship with someone, we need to be strong and bold enough to accept them with their weaknesses. We should try to help them overcome their weaknesses, as far as possible.
Friends greatly influence our success or failure in personal as well as professional life. If we are in search of good friends, we should first ourselves be a good person. We should also possess all the qualities that we expect our friend to have because we should first treat others the way we want to be treated, and only then we can make good friends who will support us in all steps of our life. It will ultimately make us happy, satisfied and successful.
Choosing a right friend is a must. A good friend is worth more than a million rupee but a fake friend may make us addict in bad habits like smoking or drinking, put us into problems time and again, and may lead us towards isolation, frustration and even depression.
