‘Show me your friend and I will tell you what type of person you are.’ This is one of the oldest sayings since forever but the question is how true is the statement really? Let’s compare friendship with something we’re very familiar with: Sponge. Association is like a sponge. In what sense? You may wonder. Once a sponge gets into water, irrespective of the colour, it takes some of the water whether clean or not.
When we associate with people, some of their traits rob off on us. It could be anything like manner of speech, gaiety, posture, or attitude; whatever we like about them.
We consciously or sub-consciously start acting out those traits or behaviour. However, the horror lies in the fact that even their bad traits also rob off on us too. When a non-smoker becomes friends with a smoker, chances are that he’ll eventually start smoking. The same goes for a person who associates with someone who uses bad language.
Wisdom becomes important when we choose our friends since in the long run they become part of us and vice versa. We must be careful when, where, and how we make friends. Just because a person appears to be a lot of fun and cognizant of current trends does not make him or her eligible for friendship.
However, before making friends we must be certain of who we are. We must be sure too of the qualities we want in persons we’d like to have as friends. It’s like the symbiotic association between the cattle and the cattlebird.
Another old saying comes to mind at this point and it goes this way: ‘No man is an island.’ Everyone needs a friend. We all need a shoulder to lean on at some point in our lives. That’s why we must be careful to make good choices, not the type that will leave us perpetually hurting and regretting.
Sonia Alakwe regularly writes prose and poetry. She’s an in-house writer for Checklist Business e-Mag.
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