Why do humans become friends? Unlike animals that may flock or form packs, humans choose their friends deliberately, for better or for worse.
Every real friendship has a purpose. A friendship should be active and mutual in order to fulfill its purpose. There are at least six reasons why humans choose to befriend one another.
1. Mutual assistance: friends are to help each other. A relationship in which one person serves to enable the other falls short of the meaning of friendship. Enabling someone is an abuse of friendship.
2. Motivation: friends encourage each other. They edify or build up each other. Friends inspire each other to succeed and excel beyond mediocrity, beyond average.
3. Improvement: friends make each other better; friends sharpen each other; King Solomon described it as iron sharpening iron; friends improve each other's personhood, self-esteem, confidence or performance as iron sharpens iron.
4. Advancement or Progress: friends help each other move from one point to the other
5. Maturity: friends nurture each other to grow up, become mature, a more complete person.
6. Endurance: friendship is a coping mechanism; a true friend gives you the edge in difficult times, because she will strengthen and empower you to cope with some of life's toughest challenges; friends see each other through hardship, without being mere bystanders. Friendship can make the difference between surviving war, as prisoner of war, or life in a refugee camp.
Friendship that fails to somehow in some way make one or both friends better cannot be called genuine friendship. It may be a leech-connection, a sponge-bond, or codependency, but not friendship in the true sense of the concept. Any friendship that ceases to make one better no longer has any purpose for being kept alive.
Every real friendship has a purpose. A friendship should be active and mutual in order to fulfill its purpose. There are at least six reasons why humans choose to befriend one another.
1. Mutual assistance: friends are to help each other. A relationship in which one person serves to enable the other falls short of the meaning of friendship. Enabling someone is an abuse of friendship.
2. Motivation: friends encourage each other. They edify or build up each other. Friends inspire each other to succeed and excel beyond mediocrity, beyond average.
3. Improvement: friends make each other better; friends sharpen each other; King Solomon described it as iron sharpening iron; friends improve each other's personhood, self-esteem, confidence or performance as iron sharpens iron.
4. Advancement or Progress: friends help each other move from one point to the other
5. Maturity: friends nurture each other to grow up, become mature, a more complete person.
6. Endurance: friendship is a coping mechanism; a true friend gives you the edge in difficult times, because she will strengthen and empower you to cope with some of life's toughest challenges; friends see each other through hardship, without being mere bystanders. Friendship can make the difference between surviving war, as prisoner of war, or life in a refugee camp.
Friendship that fails to somehow in some way make one or both friends better cannot be called genuine friendship. It may be a leech-connection, a sponge-bond, or codependency, but not friendship in the true sense of the concept. Any friendship that ceases to make one better no longer has any purpose for being kept alive.
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