Friendship is a vital part of our lives. A tree can not make a forest. I believe in the saying that if we walk individually, we may walk fast but if we walk together, we walk far and achieve milestones together. This has been my guiding principle.
In choosing who to be our friends, we need to pick people that share the same interest with us in many ways. There is a popular saying that show me your friend and I will tell you who you are. I am always careful of this statement. If a friend of mine got caught in robbery, that would be a dent on my image.
I have been a beneficiary of good relationships with friends. I have also helped connect some friends to available opportunities. I recently wrote about how networks of friends got me to where I am now. Since I started my first job a few years ago, it was friends that kept connecting me from one job to another till I got to my present job. It is a process that made me convinced that your network is a determinant of your net worth.
One thing that is always the bedrock of our friendship is shared interest.
At some point after finishing school, the shared interest of all of us was how to get jobs. One after the other, our clique of six friends started getting jobs. Among us are two Pharmacists, a Medical Laboratory Scientist, a Medical Doctor and a Builder. I am an Engineer who is now an academic. We shared many things together that connected us as friends.
Those in the medical field were the first to get jobs with private hospitals and some months later I started a teaching role with a private school. We took the success of one as the success of all of us likewise the failure of one as the failure of all.
In many cases, while hunting for a job, I got in contact with some jobs that I wasn't qualified for but had one member of the clique with the requirements. I didn't hesitate to put a call across. That was how we were all handling the job hunting to the point that the medical practitioners among us got jobs.
We continued in our efforts to see that we grow in all ramifications. About two years later, I got a role with a University while some of my medical friends had gotten roles with government and tertiary health institutions.
At that point we formed a WhatsApp group so that we could always constantly interact. In our line of interests, the next one after getting a job by majority is to help one of us, the builder who hadn't gotten a job. This was to be followed by our plan of giving back to the society.
We raised some amounts for the builder to engage himself privately and he has been doing well as a result.
We started remitting a certain amount into an account monthly for us to use the money, after accumulating for some time, to provide succor to the grassroots in form of financial aid to small scale businesses, helping out of school children and providing some amenities like water and public toilets. It has been a wonderful experience with my friends.
In addition to all these, we serve as safety nets for one another. If I am stranded financially, like I found myself when relocating to resume my current job, all it takes for me to be bailed out is to take it to the knowledge of the group.
Any member doing a wedding would have a percentage of the expenses covered by the group. We are scattered across four States but our unity of purpose transcends beyond geographical locations.
If things are bad for anybody in the group, the group has the person's back to make sure he stands again on his feet. The motto of our group is to see rendering helping hands to others as a privilege that you must grab when the opportunity presents itself.
