BENEFITS OF FRIENDSHIP

         WHAT IS FRIENDSHIP?

Friendship is a feeling of mutual affection between people.  Friendship is a close association between two people marked by feelings of care, respect, admiration, concern, or even love. It is the feeling of togetherness between two or more people who feel they need each other for growth and development. When people are friends with each other, they want to spend enough time with each other and they create memories that they wish to last for eternity and as such, reap the benefits of friendship. In the words of Jess C. Scott, “Friends are the family you choose.”

That feeling you can’t live without someone, that feeling you need to be with someone all the time, is what is called friendship. Friendship is love and love is friendship.

Friendship requires certain level of commitment, based on the strength and motives of the friendship. Sometimes, there is a desire for “regular” contact with the other person, there is mutual trust, concern, and compassion, shared interests, opinions, beliefs, or hobbies, shared knowledge about one another’s lives, emotions, fears, or interests, admiration, and so on. “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” (Oprah). Friendship is all about people living together as one person.

Friendships are of different levels depending on the level of maturity of the parties involved, the reasons and occurrences surrounding the coming together of the parties.

Among children, friendship is mainly centred towards sharing of things, playing together, closeness of parents, classmates in school, as so on.  As they grow up, they begin to move together in groups, plan activities together, and also take risks together, they begin to feel for one another and start to want to own each other.

In adolescents, it becomes more of peers, who want the same thing. They begin to make demarcations between people and want away from people who they feel do not like their way of life.

In adults, friendships become more critical and complicated. Friendship becomes more like a must-do. At this point, people begin to settle down. This is when people look for girlfriends and boyfriends, they look for lovers, and they look for soul mates and so on. Friendship here is seen as a thing of companionship.

WHAT ARE SOME WAYS TO MEET NEW PEOPLE?

Friendships are born in a million different ways, and all good friends strive to achieve the same goal: to be a source of love and support. Finding a true friend feels like a gift that keeps on giving, even when they are thousands of miles away. You may find potential friends among people with whom you’ve worked or taken classes, people you just meet when you go for exercises ,you’ve been friends in the past, but have since lost touch, you’ve enjoyed chatting with at social gatherings, you share family ties, and so on.

To find friends, someone can attend community events, volunteer for community services, extend and accept invitations, take up a new interest, join a faith community,

You can even meet friends in your class room or work place. Above all, stay positive. You may not become friends with everyone you meet, but maintaining a friendly attitude and demeanor can help you improve the relationships in your life and sow the seeds of friendship with new acquaintances. Very importantly, try not to scare people you meet away. Be flexible.

BENEFITS OF FRIENDSHIP

Friendships help a lot. Friendships can have a major impact on your health and well-being. Understand the importance of friendships in your life and what you can do to develop and nurture friendships. There are so many benefits of friendship.

1. Companionship:
   Like I said before, the first and most important benefit of friendship is the feeling that you can talk to someone who you are sure is ready to listen to you at all times. There are so many persons who are not used to doing things or making choices alone. Friendship helps to solve problems like this. Everyone should get a companion.
2. Friendship enhances relaxation of the human system:
   There is a certain feeling that comes with meeting a trusted friend. For example, when women feel close to someone, levels of progesterone, a hormone that helps reduce stress and anxiety, go up. When stress levels go down, your risk for health conditions like heart disease, obesity, and depression also goes down. Talking to friends make you smile and laugh, which in turn reduces the risk of high blood pressure.
3. Friends act as support when the going gets though:
   Challenges will always come; you will always need people to talk to. No one can live as an island. Even if it’s just having someone to share your problems with, friends can help you cope with serious illness, the loss of a job or loved one, the breakup of a relationship, or any other challenges in life.
4. Having nice friends help you develop:
   Birds of a feather, they say flock together. This is very obvious in our every day happenings. Having friends who think like you and have the same dreams, desires and passions like you, makes your development know no bounds.
5. From friends, you can learn who you are:
   Only a true friend can tell you who you are. You can look at the mirror all day to know how you look, you can make conceptions in your mind as regards how you believe you behave but it takes a very close and sincere friend to analyze and make conclusions on who you really are, how your attitudes towards people are and how your actions affect others.

HOW TO MAKE FRIENDSHIPS LAST

For better friendships, be a better friend yourself. Making a new friend is just the beginning of the journey. Friendships take time to form and even more time to deepen, so you need to nurture that new connection.

1. Do to others what you would like them to do to you.
   Treat your friend just as you want them to treat you. People want friends who do not just see them as friends, but as rare gems who they cannot stay without. Be reliable, thoughtful, trustworthy, and willing to share yourself and your time.
2. Be a listening friend:
   What’s the point of being my friend if I can’t talk to you? To make your friendship last, you have to be prepared to listen to and support friends just as you want them to listen to and support you. What goes around comes around.
3. Know your limits as a friend:
   Once in a while, you need to give them space. In as much as friendship is about companionship, there are also limits. Respect the privacy and will of your friend too. Nobody wants to be followed or played around.
4. You shouldn’t set too many rules and expectations.
   In order to retain friendships which you hold dear, it is important to loosen up for you to accommodate people. You can’t choose people who come into your life every day, and you can’t afford to lose them all.
5. Stay committed:
   Commitment is key to retaining friendships. You can’t claim to be my friend when you don’t ask of me. Commit to staying connected with your friends even when you are far apart. When it comes to maintaining a long-distance friendship, it’s important to share the details of each other’s lives so you can stay connected on a closer level. For a long-distance “Make the commitment to speak at the same time every week or month,” suggests Iona Monk. “This is your date to connect with your friend and it becomes your special time together. Develop rituals and routines and keep them going,” she says.
6. You have to be forgiving:
   No one is perfect and every friend will make mistakes. No friendship develops smoothly so when there’s a bump in the road, try to find a way to overcome the problem and move on. It will often deepen the bond between you.

WHY FRIENDSHIPS FAIL

1. Not enough time spent together:
   friendships are about companionship, talking to people, and having people who you can trust to listen to you and help when in need. If friends do not make enough time for each other, then the friendship is bound to fail.
2. Conflicting priorities:
   friends need to have similar goals and foresight in order for the friendship to last. The moment priorities and desires begin to clash; the friendship is already in the danger zone.
3. Betrayal:
   this factor is one of the deadliest enemies of friendship we encounter in our every day dealings. A friend should be someone to trust. Anything short of that is betrayal.
4. They make you feel bad:
   if the persons you keep as friends always talk down on you and make you feel inferior, then you have to let them go.
5. The friendship is leading you nowhere:
   life is about progress. If your friendship with someone hinders your development, then you have to break it up.

Friendship is a lot more than we think of it. There are so many benefits of friendship, which you can only enjoy when you make nice friends and make efforts to keep them. Relationships can be disposed based on one or two discrepancies, but friendships are for eternity. There is no way you sincerely create memories with someone you hold so dear to your heart and then, all of a sudden, you come to hate the person. Even if you lose them based on some personal disagreements or whatever, that bond inside of you will always shine out. Trying to suppress it will only lead to grudges and unnecessary thoughts which can lead you to early break down.

So, my dear, make a lot of friends and be happy. You do not need reasons to make friends, make friends because you want to smile all the time.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON FRIENDSHIP??