The Friend Series: You Be The Good Friend!

Happy New Year Lovelies!!!!! Welcome to 2019! I am super excited that we were together in 2018 and here we are in 2019. HALLELUJAH! We made it. This new year i'd like to request for more support even as i appreciate the support I have enjoyed over the years. I promise you represent the little voices in my head more and churn out more interesting posts.

We are concluding our Friends Series and this time we are dealing with US i.e you & I, me & you are we good friends? Aisha are you a good friend?, hopefully you are not the toxic friend that others are trying to avoid? If you are this is a new year, abeg CHANGE! Amem?? and incase you don't know how to be a good friend, here are a few pointers, so let's delve right into it.

1. Take a genuine interest in others.

I know this can be challenging especially in this our Naija where the hustle is real and frankly we are all OYO. But Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, said, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.” As we listen to others and show deep & genuine interest in what is important to them, we begin to truly love and understand them. Every person has an invisible sign around his or her neck that reads, “I want to feel important.” Everyone has something to offer this world. We need to search for it, find it, and bring it to the surface. For instance can we all submit our phones when we are having conversations with our friends, I mean what would twitter & IG offer you at those times that the friend you can feel & touch cannot especially just for those stipulated moments?

2. Be a giver, not a taker

All man for himself oo, LOL!. Sincerely if you find yourself always asking for help from your friends and you have not thought of giving back, you are a toxic friend. "Ask not what your friends can give to you but rather what you can give to your friends". What can we give to others? How about a smile, a hug, a kind word, a listening ear, help with an errand, a prayer, an encouraging note, a meal? We can come up with many things to give others if we are willing to be attentive to their needs. (Hint: To know someone’s needs, you must take a genuine interest in the person first.) Giving may take time. It may take us out of our way. But giving and self-sacrifice are part of the definition of love. Love is an action word not just a fruit of the lips to make people feel better when you hurt them or need favour from them.

3. Be loyal. i.e "giving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person".

I made a new friend recently and one of the things we discussed as the friendship would progress is loyalty, which I define simply as sticking/supporting your friend in front & behind them (especially behind them). My friend and I both agreed that Loyalty is a rare commodity in today’s world, but it’s an absolute requirement in true and abiding friendships. When we are loyal to one friend, we prove ourselves worthy of many. One way we show our loyalty is through our words — or lack thereof. Are you one a friend Prostitute, you just see that you cannot keep a friend for long, those friends leaving you may not be the problem, please look inward and weigh your loyalty meter. Jealousy, envy, bitterness, and anger are all sisters in sin and killers of loyalty in relationships.

4. Be a positive person. Francis Bacon said: “Friendship doubles joys and halves griefs.”

I think one thing my friends will tell about me is that I am a friend you can laugh with. We all want friends we can enjoy! People who consistently bring us down with their problems and complaints are generally not the ones we want to pal around with for any length of time. Of course, sometimes a friend will go through a difficult time, and we need to be ready and willing to hold a hand and provide a listening ear. But a friend in need is different than a habitual whiner. We want our friendships to be positive and uplifting — and that means we must be positive, uplifting friends ourselves. Please don't be that friend that only sees the negative in others, don't be the perfectionist that nobody wants to associate with.

It has been said that there are two kinds of people: those who brighten the room when they enter, and those who brighten the room when they leave. Let’s make sure we’re brightening our friendships with our presence. 

5. Appreciate the differences in others. "Variety is the spice of life"
Imagine if white or black was the only color that ever existed?! Whew! people like me will have a fit all the time because I absolutely love colors! Imagine what a splash of yellow & purple on a perfect white wall will do as per magic of lifting moods and so it is with life. God created people with a variety of personalities, talents, and interests. Each one of us is a unique creation. Mixed together we blend to form the perfect world we see. So why is it that, instead of appreciating our differences, we tend to despise them or become jealous of them?

Along with a variety of personalities comes a variety of faults. "I am the creative type and love to spend hours writing and brainstorming, but I am a little scatterbrained when it comes to details and being on time. Of course I need to work on my faults, but I also need understanding friends who will bear with me . At the same time, I need to overlook my friends’ faults in other areas". An old Turkish proverb states, “Whoever seeks a friend without a fault remains without one.” The truth is, we will never find a perfect friend here on this earth (except Jesus). So let’s appreciate our differences, both the good and the bad.

6. Be open, honest, and real. 
The word hypocrite originally described actors on a stage who covered their faces with masks to conceal their real identities. Today the word describes people who pretend to be something they’re not. True friendship cannot be built on false images. We must be true to ourselves. We may think we have to present a faultless picture of ourselves to the rest of the world, but why? No one wants to be friends with someone who is perfect! We simply need to be our best selves and allow people to know the real us.

Of course, being open and honest doesn’t mean spilling our guts to everyone. As we already know, loyalty is a rare commodity; when we find it, we know we have a friend we can trust — someone with whom we can share openly about our deepest issues and feelings. George Washington offered some wise words about friendship when he said, “Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; remember Friends get level oo and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.”

Jara: Get physical

 Hugging your friends is a great way to show you care for them. Physical contact can be really comforting, especially when someone feels alone. And so as my reader, you're automatically my friend, please note that I am such a big hugger! A big hug lets me release some emotions, sets my heart in the right place and most especially shows you how much I care & love you!.

Please read, comment and share. Love y'all so much.