Writing Challenge, Day 10: What is a Friend?

Day 10: What does it mean to be a friend?

Friends, how many of us have them?

Friends, ones we can depend on.

Let’s be friends.

To be a friend is to be present and reliable to a friend in need. It is being self-aware and realistic in your ability to support others. Friendship has to be genuine and not forced. Just like any other relationship, it takes time to cultivate, nurture and maintain. To be a friend is to be a confidant, honest and trustworthy.

Being a friend means holding yourself to the same expectations you hold others. It means holding each other accountable, and putting in the same things you want to receive (not for the sake of receiving, though, but for the sake of doing what’s right). It means being comfortable talking to each other about real shit. Friendship is being able to disagree; saying no to the “yes men” seeking favor in your corner. Friendship means holding each other down no matter who is in your face, who enters the room, or whispers into one’s ear behind the other’s back.

To be a friend is to lift each other up in the good times and in the bad times. It’s advising each other through the perils of life. It’s being a beam of hope when the other person is in sorrow. It’s making each other cry when you laugh, and laugh when you cry.

The bond of true friends transcends zip codes and extended time apart. It’s always supporting each other’s dreams, careers, goals, and art.

…unless, of course, it sucks. Then you gotta be honest with them and help them seek solutions. You can’t have your people out here looking or sounding a mess lol. But those tough conversations are exactly why you and your friends have to mesh…Moving on...

A friend knows how to push you to be your best, but still gives you space to be yourself.

Bearing this in mind, how many of us can say that we have real friends? How many of us know how to be real friends?

Stay Kultured.