Friends

Classic post from 2010 (This is a post from an old attempt at a blog called Live Simple Dude) Friends and forgiveness. Friendship is often on my mind, I am really blessed to have made some fantastic friends in my life both in terms of the loyalty and love those friends show me and also in terms of the variety they add to my life. Getting me interested in sports, music and other things I might never have considered before, transmitting a passion for something that you had never come into contact with before. I have always believed in treating everyone I meet like a friend….. If I ever meet you then I hope I greet you with a big smile, maybe a big handshake of perhaps even a big ol’ bear hug if that is your thing. There is of course a difference between treating people like a friend and treating them with insincere friendliness. To truly treat someone like a friend requires to look at how you feel about your friends on the inside.You have to reflect! Sometimes it is difficult to know the difference between genuine and insincere friendliness. I think the distinction is probably open honesty and genuine interest. Sometimes it is difficult to be interested in new people you meet because you are tired or perhaps preoccupied, in these cases be honest with your new friend tell you are beat and your conversation will not be of it’s usual high standard Recently my phone buzzed right as I was about to sit down with a cup of tea and a bit of something to read, it turned out to be a call about a recent purchase and the company was interested in my feedback…… In the past my reaction to these types of calls has been to slam the phone down, tell the poor soul phoning me where to go (impolitely), sometimes take the piss out of them and at my most ascerbic I even took the piss out of a poor girl who phoned me by imitating her English accent. The truth is these people were just doing a job and didn’t need an asshole like me making there day any worse so when the dude who phoned me the other night asked me how my evening was going and was it okay to ask me a couple of questions I asked him how his evening was and would it be okay if when he finished asking me a couple of questions, would it be okay if I asked him a couple of questions. He said hesistantly that was okay. Here is how the conversation played out: “Good evening sir is that Mr (My surname)” “Who wants to know? (You have to be a little careful)” “It is Brad from (name of car rental company)” “Ah okay, yes it is Mr (My surname) but call me Dave” “Erm okay sir I would like to ask you a couple of questions about your recent car hire” “Nae bother Brad” “First of all sir, how are you this evening?” “I told you dude call me Dave, I am really well how are you?” “I am fine sir, thank you for asking. Then we got the customer service survey out of the way and then I asked him why he was working there. Turned out he was a young guy working on the company’s management training program, he was keen to advance. I thought “what a nice guy” when I got off the phone. The truth is, as soon as you think about everyone in terms of how you would feel in their situation……all the time, then it becomes very easy to see that everyone does the best they can with what they have at that given time. There is a wonderful aspect to this in that wherever you go you will very quickly make new friends, see more the good in people as opposed to what can be bad about them. Before we go on I want to tell you a little fact about assholes….. To your average asshole there is always a good reason for being an asshole. I was really lucky growing up to have two (sometimes three) good guys who I went through school with and we pretty much went through all those big life things with each other, from the really amazing times to the really shitty times. These guys taught me a tremendous amount about friendship and forgiveness. During twenty odd years of friendship we have all been tremendous assholes to each other in that time. By my reckoning I have been the biggest asshole, sometimes doing things that beg belief. However I think my friends knew that when I acted like and asshole I was never deliberately trying to do things that would piss people off, I was always going with the best information and feelings I had at the time and many many times I screwed up and had to say sorry. My friends know I am not perfect and I know they are not perfect. At the end of the day no one is perfect and we all screw up sometimes we screw up in big gigantic ways. The trick is knowing that we screwed up and trying to become better people from that, nothing is achieved by beating yourself up or holding grudges against people that do.Those friendships I love and truly cherish, the people that know I’m not perfect and are still my friends even though I screw up. Do you have weird screw up friends? I hope you do. They make life interesting and that is a love you can cherish forever. Sometimes people will screw up for a long period of time and then it is time to give them a bit of space for a while and let them figure out for themselves they are screwing up but all we can do is wait for them to come round and don’t treat them any different when they call us up after many weeks, months or years. When you feel that someone has offended you or made such a big mess of things that it’s time to start hating them, then you have to ask yourself, who is being the biggest asshole. Ego and pride can be the biggest obstacles to being a good friend and a person held together by sincerity and compassion. Unfortunately if you are like me, ego and pride are two characteristics I have by the bucket load and it is a constant challenge to keep them in check. When I started writing this it was with the intention of trying to explain how people can find friends everywhere and good friends are the simplest and most enriching joy in life. Not friends gotten out of need to climb a corporate ladder or friends that increase your popularity but friends that care about you and want the best for you no matter whether you disagree on what is the best or not. Loyal, loving and honest friends.