“There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.” -Thomas Aquinas
Friend. For many people these days, all that word means is a person that has added them on a social media account. That person can act against or have no connection with you other than you see them regularly. However, this is not what friendship is.
In the Western languages I have studied including English, the word friend always comes from a root that means “to love.”
A friend is therefore a person who loves you and whom you love.
So, what is love? Love is trust, support in hard times, and when a friend tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.
Four good friends are better than four hundred indifferent ones.
My brother and I often speak with an old friend of ours, who has a lot of friends and goes out often with them, but he tells us that my brother and I are the only real friends he has; the others in his life would not notice much of a difference if he disappeared. When something is bothering him, he will often call my brother and me because nobody else is compassionate enough to listen to him. That is not only his story but the story of many Americans today.
Consider this story that just made shockwaves last week. A girl live streamed her friend’s rape on social media and according to the article became caught up in getting likes for the video. Further, according to the article again, she was giggling while it was happening and did not appear to do much to try and stop what was going on.
People think likes show acceptance. The things people are willing to do for acceptance these days highlights the fact that they have no one to turn to as a true friend. Further, in some ways like the above story, they themselves are incapable of being friends. Sadly, that’s what’s become common after the advent of social media. We keep in touch with people we have met maybe once, maybe never, but there is no quality with that friendship. Now, I am not against social media; I have written about how social media helped me reestablish contact with my childhood friends, but what I am writing about today is the lack of effort people put into maintaining their friendships in the present digital age.
There are three things to remember about friendship now that we live in an extremely fast-paced, technology-driven world.
1. Friendship is what you can do for your friends, not only what they can do for you
Too often, our civilization focuses on what others can do for us, and not what we can do for them. This includes our families and friends. However, just by changing this mindset and focusing on what we can do for our friends as well, the depth of our friendships rises.
To be clear, I do not mean we should have friends who do nothing for you, but you do much for them. It is also important that those whom we call friends value us and focus on helping us as well.
2. You must seek quality in your friendships
The old adage “quality not quantity” is true. According to a 2013 study by LifeBoat, 75% of Americans are not truly satisfied with their friendships. Further, 65% said they were not confident in their friendships. However, 68% of Americans said they would like more depth in their friendships rather than more friends. This was true regardless of different factors such as age and gender.
Interestingly enough, this study found that “social media [has] relatively little influence on healthy relationships and overall satisfaction with life” (Lifeboat, 2013, pg. 28). So, maybe the best thing we can do to maintain and deepen our friendships is to meet our friends face to face and not just message them.
3. You must choose your friends wisely
Your friends affect you. We have heard that we are the average of our five closest friends. This is true. If we do not choose good people to be our friends: those we trust, who share our values, who are there for us in the hard times, and who tell us what we need to hear, then we will eventually not only be unsatisfied with our friendships, but we will become like our friends that may not be good and lose ourselves.
How many close friends do you have? How have they positively affected you? What do you do for them?
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.