Friendship.

Friendship is a devine blessing on mankind. It’s the only kind of commitment without any legal bonding. It’s a wonderful blessing on some people. One needs to be really lucky to have friends who you can trust, love, quarrel, punch, open up and expect to hold on through thick and thin. Such friends are god send.

Even within a family children should respect their parents and are duty bound to carry out certain responsibilities.whether it suits them or not. Siblings also quarrel but that biological cord of the family finally holds them together. But true friends have no beholden commitments except that they connect with emotions.

Only very few lucky ones have one or two such emotionally committed friends.But most of us have a plethora of friends in life. The first set of friends are the work related ones.Whether at school or office this set of people are the ones we meet everyday. These may not be our fastest friends but they generally have a great influence in our day to day lives. Children bond the highest with this group and their world is generally to a large extend governed by their peer cluster. In the most formative years of life the influence exerted by these friends go a long way in moulding our avenues of interest and pursuits of life.

As we grow up one’s exposure to the world widens up. At this stage depending on the core personality of the person the plethora of varied friends widen up. Some people are by nature introverts and they don’t land up with a big bunch of friends. But they know who they can gel with. Here the age old saying ” Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are” bears a huge relevance.

Society is the crux of human happiness. Outside home and family our blessing is friendship. As the world opens up to us we start developing arrays of connections.

Some friends catch up for holidaying. They are happiest together on vacations.They love to travel, play, singalong and enjoy the lighter side of life together. They can relax and destress together without any inhibitions.

Friends at our workplace often are very dear. But colleagues may have a sense of emulation amongst themselves. This may not allow them to open up uninhibited in this circle.

But one of the most blessed category of friends are the ones who you can trust in distress. Lucky you are if you know that you have at least one friend who will not let you down in a crisis.These days very few people have such friends.You can actually sit back and trust that they will provide a cushion in any situation.

Now with families becoming smaller and nuclear we often reach a stage when we seek security in social endearment.Today’s usual course of life is childhood, adolescence, youth, marriage, family, nurturing children and toiling to grow professionally. In the meantime children grow and fly out of the nest.Then comes a beautiful stage of financially secured relatively leisure filled healthy life ( if lucky). At this stage we want friends for happy experiences. This is also a stage to give back to the society who stood by us in various ways throughout life. The experience of comrades of a feather flocking to work together with no expectations in return is ecstasy. This group of people can make the world a better place to live in. By this stage everyone has experienced grief, happiness, success and failures. These real time perceptions gives them a confidence to hold on.If like minded friends don’t join hands many people start feeling insecure at the dawn of their sunset years.

Life is actually what we make it. The peace and security within a family is definitely of the highest order. But for various reasons beyond control not everyone can find it for granted.

The best experiences are always hidden in the interactions of like minded people.

To wrap it up all ‘true, trusted, enduring friendship is a Devine blessing.’ treasure and nurture it with utmost care if you have even one such friend.

The pivot of life is family but the meaning of living is friendship.

By

Dr Madhumita Priyadarshini Das