Scarce

Every one will probably recognize that it is very helpful in this life, no matter where you live, to have a good friend whom you know is going to be there for you in a time of personal need. This person is very special in your list of contacts on Facebook or other social platforms, and you probably contact him or her frequently, not just in case of personal emergencies, but just for some personal fellowship with someone that you knows really cares for you. I am sure that you have discovered that it is not easy to find and to create the appropriate connection that will result in the development of a good friend in your social network. The connection has to be deeper than one of just liking you. Many contacts on social platforms will say that they “like” you without getting to really knowing you or making themselves available to you at a moment’s notice. You may have discovered that a good friend cannot be bought or otherwise manipulated into becoming your “good friend”. Such a person cannot be legally required to be your “good friend” even if he or she is a blood relative or even your spouse or a dependent or your boss or a working associate or even a team member. Neither you nor this person are required to be morally “good” persons in order to be a good friend, so personal goodness is not a requirement for being a good friend. These qualities of personal relationships and your inability to apply them to anyone in your social community means that a good friend is probably scarce in your network of contacts.

Qualities

In the above statement I have described some of the basic qualities of a person whom you might choose to become a good friend of yours, but there are some more. This person must be free enough and mature enough to be able to make his or her own personal decisions in his or her personal relationships. Coercion or childish foolishness should not be a part of his or her decision making procedures. He or she must have a high level of respect for others and for law and order in personal and civic business and have a good reputation among the respected leaders in your community. A good friend must love himself and herself and basically know how to love others in unselfish ways. A very selfish person cannot really be a good friend to anyone. A good friend should be humble and practical in his or her standards for living. A good friend should share a lot of the personal values for morality and spiritual believes that you have. Severe differences in these values will not enable a good friendship to develop. A good friend should have some free available time in his or her personal daily schedule of responsibilities to be able to respond to you. A person whose time is already committed to other responsibilities is not going to have much time to give to you and your needs, although sometimes short conversations with a friend can be encouraging and prayers will always be helpful. A good friendship takes time to develop and to operate. A good friend should have some personal resources that could be beneficial to you in accord with your needs. Available funds can be helpful, but they are not absolutely necessary to be a good friend. A person who does not have any such resources, does not have anything to share with you. A good friend should be able to understand you and to feel your needs. Without such personal qualities in his or her personal experiences, he or she is not likely to be able to be a good friend. Your expressions of concern and requests for his or her help would be constantly encountering walls of confusion that would only produce experiences of mutual frustration and disappointment.

Becoming a good friend

This process will take a lot of time for you and the person with whom you would like to develop such a relationship. Becoming a good friend will require a lot of patient and genuinely loving exchanges. Mistakes and poor expressions and actions will have to be forgiven, and both individuals will have to be willing to humbly work together to prevent them and to overcome their effects in their efforts to become a good friend to each other. Some good friendships have been permanently broken by unresolved simple misunderstandings. Becoming a good friend to others will require some personal changes in yourself that are not quickly or easily generated or maintained. Most of us human beings are too selfish to easily give up our preferred wants and habits to be a good friend with someone who is different from us.

Let’s talk about this

I think that the above statements have clearly expressed the challenges of finding and being a good friend in any personal relationship. What do you think of these challenges? What do you find to be difficult in this process of being a good friend? What do you recognize as being essential to becoming a good friend with another person? Who is your good friend, other than your pet dog? What makes him or her so good?