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Friendship
by: Kj
Maguire
I think it is not coincidence that the word friendship
contains the word ship. Stop working, stop checking things off your “to-do”
list, stop balancing your checkbook and just spend a few quiet moments today
thinking about your best friend.
If you’re lucky, you won’t be able to immediately identify who that
person is. You may have several close and treasured friends and declaring one
your “best” friend may seem to diminish the value of the rest. And then
again, you may have a small variety of best friends because one is your work
friend, one is your skiing friend, maybe another is your spouse or one of your
parents and you’re friends for reasons that go beyond free-time.
But ultimately, I think you know who I’m talking about. They are your
best friend and if you think about it long enough, it becomes more clear, not
less. Now don’t be distressed if this person has other friends. That is not a
factor. It is completely possible and acceptable to recognize their value to you
as a friend despite their close and trusted relationships with others. That’s
fine.
Now, put this person aside for a minute and think about your life without
them. I’m not saying “picture them dead”. I’m just saying look at your
day-to-day path through this world that is separate from your time with them.
See if you can identify ways that they affect your thinking, your behavior, or
your choices. Chances are they do. Dead or alive, they have an impact on you. I
think that’s one of the key indicators of best friend status.
Back to that notion of a ship. I have a couple of friends who swear up and
down that the greatest vacation in the whole world is to get on a cruise ship
for a week or two. “Everything is included” they declare. If you look at
life on a cruise ship, it would be easy to forget that you’re even on a ship.
It can easily become a city in and of itself. Moving, floating, underway or
docked, it’s more or less the same fun, comfortable little village. But it’s
still a ship. Someone looking from a distance, say ½ mile away, would probably
see none of the life going on aboard ship. They would not see the food, the
games, the dancing, or the conversation. They would see a ship and nothing more.
It may be a grand and magnificent ship, but it is just a boat. (By the way, my
father, ex-Navy, would stop me at
this point to remind me that a ship is a ship and a boat is a boat. The two
words are NOT interchangeable. He has explained to me on numerous occasions that
a boat is what you might put ON a ship but the reverse could never be true. They
are not the same thing.)
Those viewing this ship from a distance would be missing the whole reason
for being aboard. The life.
I think friendship is like that. Most people look at you from a distance
and they see a guy or a girl going through life and having a good time, or
having trouble, or what ever….. They don’t think too much about what’s
going on onboard. They are a part of your world because you share an ocean, or
you wave when you pass, or you seem to have similar destinations. They don’t
really know for certain, but to them, from a distance it sure looks that way.
What separates them from best friend status is that they’re not really
onboard. Maybe they don’t want to be or maybe they have never been invited,
but either way, they are on somebody else’s cruise.
If your ship catches fire or hits an iceberg, they would be more than
happy to radio for help or launch the life boats. But you can’t really count
on them to dive in and start saving people. You can’t really count on them to
give up their life preserver or their seat on a life boat. They might but you
can’t be sure.
Best friends on the other hand make no such measured judgments. They just
jump. No hesitation, no regrets, they dive in. Right about now, you may be
rethinking your choice for best friend status in your life and if so, that’s
OK. But be sure about one thing. They either are, or they aren’t. There’s no
middle ground.
What if you start to think that maybe you don’t have someone like this
in your life? What if you start to feel a little afraid that nobody is that
close to you, no one would jump in without hesitation and risk everything to
help you? I would suggest that
it’s not true. I would suggest that you have exactly that type of person in
your sphere of influence but you haven’t noticed them yet. Kind of a nice
thought huh? Don’t be so busy. Don’t be so smug as to think that you’ve
got this life business all figured out. Could be you don’t. Could be there is
somebody out there who sees you as their best friend. Could be you have several
of these people. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that it’s likely.
So now, if you can accept that, you have a lot of interesting things you
can do with that knowledge. What a great way to live a life, looking for the
best in people. Looking for alliances and relationships that you have
underestimated and undervalued. How fun to get up every day wondering where the
next surprise shipmate will show up.
I think it’s a shame that people test their friendships only during
times of trouble. I think it’s a shame that the strength of a bolt is defined
as the point at which it breaks. If you’re lucky, and if you’re smart, the
people who care about you this way will start to look differently than the rest
of the crowd. They will be in color while those behind them are in black and
white.
Oh, and I’ll tell you what made me think about his whole thing…. I
read an article about some French born explorer who has lived in Finnish Lapland
for the last 15 years. She decided to walk, alone and unaided, to the North Pole
which struck me as odd because other people have already done this. In fact one
of the things she is known for is that she walked alone and unaided to the
magnetic north pole a full 13 years after some other woman had done it. The
point is that as of this writing, she has gone missing on her first day out. And
this got me thinking….. What a waste? All over the world, there are people
that would give everything, ANYTHING to have one more day on this earth. Imagine
the cancer patient or the AIDS patient who’s light is dimming…. What would
they give for a week of good health and the ability to just walk to the market
and buy a candy bar? This all just started to seem very out of whack to me.
I guess the thought of doing that myself, walking someplace so dangerous
for what amounts to no reason what-so-ever just seemed very sad. How is there
nobody in this woman’s life who would step up and say, “You know, Dominick,
there are a couple of kids in my son’s class that need help with their
reading. Would you be able to tutor them.” Or how about “Gee, Dominick, I
understand the homeless shelter is running out of money, why not take some of
your slush fund (no pun intended) and help them get their furnace fixed?”
I’m sure this is just small minded of me. I’m sure that I have failed
to grasp the power and exhilaration that comes from seeing how close you can
come to dying without really dying, but the truth is I admit that. I don’t see
it. Life is full of enough landmines. You can punch out just walking across the
street. How is that any less glamorous than dying along 200 miles from anywhere
on a frozen ice shield where you have wandered voluntarily? I guess I don’t
get it.
The most valuable things in my life are not things. They’re times and
places that I have shared with somebody. No question that I enjoy quiet alone-time to think and regain my equilibrium, but basically, Man is a social
animal. Your family, your friends and your impact on others is for the most
part, the definition of your life.
I guess it makes sense from time-to-time to look around and take stock.
Don’t get so busy that you miss that best friend that has been there for you
time and time again. Don’t get so focused on your task list that you over look
your shipmates. You have a lot of rare and precious conversations ahead of you.
It would be a shame to miss them.
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