Friendship is an inexplicable relationship. Each one of us has friends close and dear to us but may still find it hard to explain how friendship grows and strengthens with time. Is it that people with similar likes and dislikes become good friends? I think it is not necessarily the case. I received an SMS today, which says that " The world's happiest friends never have the same characters; they just have the best understanding of their differences". It is said that we become siblings by chance but we become friends with our heart. How do we choose who is going to be our friend? Is it in our hands? It does not seem to me that I decide a priori that I have to make friends with someone and work towards that! So how do we become friends with someone? I feel that I tend to become friends with people who like me as I am and who value me. This is only possible when some one lives according to his/her own real nature. To find some one who likes you as you are is akin to finding a treasure, why go behind people who don't care for you.
It is also said that the best friends we have are not the most compatible ones we could find but the ones who we get to find first. So there is an element of chance in friendship too. We rarely realize that we become so close to a person until the time comes when we have to depart. I find it amazing that life brings together people who are from very far off places, different languages, different cultures and many other differences and let the friendship bloom. Before they realize, the bond is formed an then there is that day when you have to depart and move on in life. This process repeats and it is this what makes life what it is.
Is the relation of friendship above all the petty feelings of jealousy, pride and personal ego? I do not want lie by saying that I never felt jealous of my friend who did better than me. I think it is human tendency. But the moment I realize that I am getting jealous, I replace jealousy with a feeling of pride -- that it is my friend who did better then me. It is a wonderful transformation; it motivates me to work harder and achieve better at the same time enjoying the success of my friends.
Why would the ability to make friends have evolved for humans? Our friends are least likely to be genetically related to us, especially for us who live in places far off from home. Hence we can not attribute the affinity that we show to our friends to the possibility of altruism to genetically related members of the species. Does the ability to make friends cause any fitness to an individual, or gene that has the ability?
A person could be judged by the friends he/she has. The friends have a tremendous effect on a person's life. Our friends reflect on our values and they affect our aspirations. If we don't think too much about the nature friendship and its evolutionary origins, it is a wonderful feeling to have friends who are concerned about you.
It is said that, when a person dies and is being cremated, if there are four friends who stay back to cry after everybody else has left, the person has had lived a wonderful life.
