#YEAR12PROBLEMS

True friendship

Happy Monday, folks.

On a nice spring morning I thought I’d talk about something that gives me the same feeling as this wonderful season does: true friendship. Yes, that’s right, true friendship can make you feel fresh, happy and warm as if you’ve just come out of the dark cave that is winter. I also think true friendship is as natural as spring – the flowers are growing, the leaves are returning and everything just feels right.

True friendship is undoubtedly a blessing. It’s something that philosophers, particularly Epicurus, noted is a genuine pleasure for humans and a source of happiness. He went so far as to move into a house of all of his friends and they lived together in harmony.

If you’re thinking that’s not possible, it might be because you haven’t got many true friends around you. True friends (those few, special people) are those you could most definitely move in with and have a great time. The difficultly may be getting your true friends to be true friends with each other…

But that’s not the point. Moving in with all of your true friends in this day and age is much more of a hypothetical thing than a reality. The point is that true friends are the people that we chose and those who chose us in return. We love them unconditionally and they love us unconditionally in return.

True friends may never see each other for many months or years but when they are reunited, it’s like they were never apart. I would know, one of my true friends is someone I haven’t seen properly since January. And we don’t talk everyday. But she’d be the first person I’d go to if I had a real dilemma.

For me, true friendship is one that transcends every obstacle in its way: class, location, time, busy schedules, the lot.

It can be easy to forget you have those true friends if you don’t see them often, but they’re there always. Just as you’re always there for them. So, to my true friends (congratulations, you’re in this column), I love you and thank you.

See you next week.