The Incomparable Factor called FRIENDSHIP

As I entered the college auditorium, there was an extempore going on. The topic that a third year student was presenting was - friendship. Such a simple yet difficult to explain concept that I started wondering what I would have spoken?

       

A friend – brings to mind someone who cares, respects, and understands us, who wants our company and whose company we enjoy as well. Someone on whom we have no rights, who has separate responsibilities, but we come together to share some moments of togetherness.

 It's been years since college. What happens when we meet those friends from those college times?  I feel it like time travel. We travel back to those times, those little moments shared together. The dancing on the hostel bed and getting caught in the act by the warden. The trip to the lake with a friend a day before an exam, the teasing, the laughs, the smiles. We suddenly realize how little moments have in fact not been forgotten but were etched into the memory to be brought out unexpectedly when we connect with the people from those times. Connecting again to the fun, the excitement, the unique joys of college years that we traversed together.

That’s what friends hold. They represent the memories and the experiences, the lessons from the shared time period.  The advantage of friendship is that it is neither a too close relationship nor a too distant one and so the mutual expression and expectations are on a mean, neither too little nor too much. While close relationships of family as well as love relationships have their own value, these may hold a lot of expectations and demands attached, that can, in fact, make for each individual's burden! It is friendships again, that aid in carrying these burdens...of earning, of succeeding, of managing a home perfectly and efficiently, and so on. Such little comforts of sharing are what friendships provide.

Can you share ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING with your family? Since family is so close, they are often affected by what we have to reveal. But there can be friends we can share anything with, without causing them discomfort or arousing any possessiveness or anger.  In fact, a good friend can be a better listener than even a counsellor who hardly knows us.

Also, family may take us for granted. The closer we get, as in a love  relationship, the baggage of old relationship, personal issues, hidden facets; all are more and more expressed, and the result is that often close relations become more a challenge than a joy. Not that close relationships cannot become a joy, but it is only possible when they have the right amount of 'friendship factor' added to it, in other words, enough closeness and enough distance that prevents the disease called “taking for granted”. In other words, it’s important to be a friend first in every relationship, remembering that no matter what the relationship, we can't own anybody; it helps to truly care, no matter what is shared or expressed.

I read recently, that in a study, it was found that it is not success, relationships or even religion that contributes most to the happiness quotient of any individual, rather it is true friendships.  I could really agree to that! Friendship, a relationship with the right amount of closeness and the right amount of distance is an equilibrium relationship, and so, no doubt, is incomparable.

There... I have finally spoken, on what I began considering years ago, listening to an extempore, on the  incomparable relationship - friendship, and I am happy that today, I can finally say, I don't just hope to make friends with people I like, I do take the initiative to hold my hand out to those I appreciate. Not all may take the extended hand, but there are those who do, and never let go. I am blessed to have some such GREAT friends!