F is for friend

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F is for friend for many us, when told to guess a word that starts with F, friend is not off the list. We care for our friends and we expect that they do the same for us. We have friends since the day we went to kindergarten, since our first trip to the park and even when we went to camps, sports centre’s or our first jobs. Everywhere we go and we meet and engage with people for some time, they enter our inner circle of friends. We quickly identify the people where share a couple of smiles, laughs and deep conversations with a friend. This shows us that we can have many friends but what is our true friend, that friend who can be the shoulder for you to cry on, who protects your personal secrets and will not spill them out and who respects you like they do themselves and that you do the same in return. How do we know who will be our close friends as friends enter and leave our lives like you enter and leave a door?
1.      A friend has to match your life expectations
A person you identify as a friend has to have close expectations in life to you. It doesn’t mean that they have to have the same career as you, like the same things as you and see life exactly how you see it but you are similar in some areas. If you believe you have to be a loyal friend, then your friend should have the same principles. If you believe that you should treat the people around you with respect and courtesy, then your friend should to and if you respect the law and abide by it then your friend should to. Its these things that should link you together, if you are a hard-worker who doesn’t like to waste time or you have this vision that keeps running through your mind then your friend should respect that so you can attain that. However, you shouldn’t forget to do the same for them as you can’t just take, you also have to give the same amount back

2.      ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’
When your car breaks down and you need a lift somewhere or need urgent assistance for something and your friend is there for you then that is a friend indeed. Whether you are grieve-stricken or need some helpful advice your friend is the one who is there to fill the gaps you have. If your friend can’t do that then that isn’t much of a friend as the saying goes, you only know your true friend when a calamity befalls you, all go but that special will stay. If they can’t make it to you, they will still share their heart with you and you can understand and feel their heart coming to you and you do the same in return. Sometimes we see calamites as a bad thing, nut really they hold large amounts of benefits and one of them is that it distinguishes those who care and those who have always provided lip service to you

3.      Respects you and ignores your incompleteness
If a person wants you to change who you are to be there friend, then they are not your true friends. A friend respects your mistakes, incompleteness and rather helps you find inner confidence within you to embrace who you are. Your stuff ups to them is who you are and they see it as okay. They want to get to know the real you and not the imposter you want to be like. That is why it is important to befriend people who do not require to change your real identity and be what you are not.

4.      A friend love for you what they love for themselves
If you get something good your friend will not envy you but congratulate you on your success. They will not hold grudges or think why did you get this, rather they love it for like they would themselves and that removes selfish egos. In any place where you have to deal with people selfish egos a destructive, they make you feel envious when others get what you did not. The prophet said;
‘love for your brother what you love for yourself’.
This implies that as people we have to acknowledge the good we have for each other and if your friend can’t do that then that leads to complications.

A friend has to be someone we can trust as if we were trusting ourselves and since we draw a friend close to each other than any other person, even closer than our families we have to be able to identify who they are. A friend is a cloud wherever they go we go as the prophet said as we imitate them and their good or unpleasant ways rub on us as the prophet described the friend. He (s.a.w) says: “A good friend and a bad friend are like a perfume-seller and a blacksmith: The perfume-seller might give you some perfume as a gift, or you might buy some from him, or at least you might smell its fragrance. As for the blacksmith, he might singe your clothes, and at the very least you will breathe in the fumes of the furnace.”
Thus stating that what our friend is rubs on us, their influence more powerful than even our parents. That’s why we need people who acknowledge us for who we are and that we acknowledge them for who they are.


Hope you like and feel free to state any other traits a friend should have. 

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