By Dr Birbal Jha
Let’s be friends with others. If you are no friends with someone today, who will be your friend tomorrow? Let’s make friends, not foes. Happiness comes from having friends rather than foes or enemies. Friendship must take the place of enmity and hostility. It is never advisable to continue fighting with your friends. Let there be no room for sadistic or cruel pleasure.
Hence, who is a friend or a foe? A friend is someone you know, like, and want to spend time with, sharing your feelings and emotions. He or she stands by you through thick and thin, encouraging you to do something good and preventing you from doing something wrong.
At the same time, a friend can give you an honest opinion, as the adage goes, “A friend’s eye is a good mirror.” A person who harbours enmity, hatred, malice, hostility, or antagonism is your foe. So, if you want a friend, be a friend. Be foes no more! Let’s embrace each other.
In today’s era, it is easy to find a fair-weather friend everywhere, whereas it is extremely difficult to get an all-weather friend whose support remains constant regardless of good or bad times. However, the Krishna-Sudama saga is a case in point from which one can learn what a chum is.
An old saying goes like this: A friend in need is a friend indeed. However, the real picture of buddy comes to light in an hour of need. It is an open secret that when the tree falls, the monkeys scatter. But fast friends stay together, having a bond of love, affection, and mutual understanding, following a Swedish proverb: “Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.”. This holds true.
You must not flaunt the fact that you have a friend at court and the fact that you have friends in high places to justify doing things you should not be doing. You must not try to influence others to take advantage.
Maintaining healthy friendships requires remembering two adages. One is ‘Good accounting makes good friends. Another is ‘Short reckonings make long friends.’
Never forget these two axioms; one is that “a false friend is worse than an open enemy.” Another is “Your biggest enemy is never a stranger.”
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
