before I start writing my First story, I would like to introduce myself. I am Foster Yembilla from Ghana in West Africa. I am a student of the CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, a sound engineer and a blog writer.
A True Friend
A true friend is what i will define as a person who sees in another even though not blood related, a companion. Most often than not, we see people who always praise us as our true friends. People who never finds errs with our actions and portrays us as perfect people. But I can tell your from experience, that your true friend is the one who will criticize you the most, the person who will always see your mistakes, that person who don't really like to praise you much. The question most people ask is
why would the person i call my best friend be my worst critic ?
well, if you asked this question too, then it means you never saw things from this point of view. Imagine you had a only child, and that child started doing things that will destroys his/her future. would you let the child continue to do those things because you think he/she will see you are a bad parent? or, will you do the right thing to save his/her future?. You see, a true friend is one that have you at heart like a parent and therefore can't afford to watch you go astray as you future concerns him/her.
My own experience
A lady friend of mine, introduced me to her boyfriend. The guy is a really nice guy, and it did not take long before we become very good friends too. This made us three very good friends and we had very interesting times together. As the saying goes " its not everyday you get served breakfast in bed by a beautiful woman though you might be married" It glittered for a while but guess what happened? My now two good friends had a serious fight and broke up. the questions you are probably asking now, is the same question I asked myself that day. Where does that leave me? and if I was a good friend, why did i watch them brake up? The answer I have is that after the brutal fight that split them up, we are still the best of friends but no love birds flying in between.
How is that possible? is probably the question lingering in your mind now.
well the reason why we are still the best of friends is because i played my role as a true friend. I saw the greater good rather than which one was my favorite friend. In the four years of friendship and their relationship, I realized one thing, and that is, the guy loved my lady friend way more than the she loved him. So he gave 100% and got only 50% and i think that's probably what broke them up. I stayed neutral in all subjects, especially when they came to me as a friend seeking council. I remember even during their fights the guy would ask me why I won't support him as he was a colleague man? and the lady too will ask me if I have forgotten who introduced who to whom. But what i had in mine was not to support anyone of them, but to make sure that if they eventually broke up i should be able to keep us together as good friends and not let the hatred that develops from broken hearts brew in to something else.
To cut the long story short, today we are still the best of friends. I chose today without even taken a second to consider who was my favorite friend, and how he/she felt when I didn't give any of them my support. I know at one point of time they would probably see me as the bad friend but today, they keep asking me the question how are we still friends i mean real friends not just people who say hi to each other. We still meet to eat, go to the beach together and call each other as if we never had problems.
True friends want the best for you and whatever that would get the best out of you is what they will do even if it would take you hating them. So an advice from a friend would be, look at the reasons why that your friend is always on you, why is he/she always acting like your parents, pointing out your mistakes without hesitations and being critical as possible. One thing about these friends is that, they are always there. Even though they criticize you and all that, whenever you need them, they are always there.
So, before you chase that heartless guy who doesn't feel any pity making sure you do the right thing away, make sure you find out the reasons why he/she is always there to criticize you. You might drive away the only person who could make you a better person than you think you could be.
