Endangered Species

Chapter III:                “friends”

I still recall a conversation that I had with one of my best friends in which he purposed himself to share with me the foundational principles by which he builds his friendships upon.  The incredible part for me was how much his principles coincided with the ones that I have set as parameters for myself.  Principles are something that we all need to have as they become the standards by which we are able to gage what is truly important and valuable to us.  There is an old saying that goes: “If you don’t stand for something; you may fall for anything.”  (Author unknown)

The foundational principles and/or values by which I build my friendships upon are: Respect, Loyalty, Integrity, Communication, Character and Spirituality.  Those are all extremely important to me because I realize that if a person is making it a point to demonstrate those strengths as part of their everyday nature, I won’t have to worry about them trying to be a barrier to my growth or intentionally doing anything that could potentially cause harm to me or my family.  We used to call that “having your back”, when a person truly has your back, they’ll be there for you, they’ll want the best for you, be willing to pray for you and will not have any question or doubts as to whether the feelings and actions are being reciprocated.

            Too often we build friendships based upon what we believe a person can do for us, what we want out of that relationship or we esteem them to be someone whom we believe that we would like to pattern ourselves after.  We also may relatively often be willing to compromise on certain characteristics that we know to be questionable, such as some of the lifestyle choices that our “friends” may be choosing to make or on other behaviors which may demonstrate a lack of integrity.  A person’s fame, fortune or ability to influence others should never be so enticing or intriguing to us that it causes us to compromise our own values.  Furthermore, if your friends truly respect you and your values they’ll respect your integrity for not being willing to waiver on yours.  We will sometimes develop friendships with people out of certain conveniences such as seeing each other at work every day, and therefore concluding that there is a premise to build a friendship upon simply because you work together and both have to eat lunch.  Don’t get me wrong, I have had the honor and pleasure of forging some great friendships based on having met some great people in the workplace, however we did come to realize that we shared in values and commonality that extended far beyond sharing the same workspace.  I can also assure you that those friendships did not just spring up over night and can definitely attest to the fact that these are the types of guys who are ever going to try to steer me wrong.

They won’t for example, encourage you to ever cheat on your wife or place you in compromising positions wherein the temptations and opportunities create a platform to make it easy to do such.  As men, in order for us to have a friend, we must first prove ourselves to be a friend.  A real friend is going to do his part to hold his friend accountable to the things that he has committed and purposed himself to do.  That means that if your friend is truly your “Dawg, your Boy, your Buddy, Homeboy, Pal or???” he will NEVER intentionally put you in a predicament wherein your life and/or your freedom is at risk. He would never encourage you to quit school or not fulfill your commitments or promises.   A real friend is going to help you live above and beyond the statistics.