Friends

When we look back at the things that happened in our past having the knowledge of what we know now, we often find it funny, difficult to understand, and at times regretful of how we made the mistakes done.
This is so because we know better now based on our experiences. We know now how to handle compromising situations once we have learned how to handle it, we often times desire to be back at that moment to correct the errors made. It is like those moments when we were spanked by our parents to be disciplined, which made us either hate them or fear them for it, and wonder nowadays how they could have thought that was a good idea to instill discipline on us. Similarly, our personal pasts are full of mistakes we can’t believe we made. We did things then that we would never do now, and this is precisely because we learned how to manage those things now that we didn’t know how to handle before, or weren’t able to access to said new insights then.
From new methodologies in coping with our development to making means to treat the environment, our collective past experiences sometimes reads like a document on what not to do. In many ways, this is exactly as it should be. We learn from living and having experiences. It is from these past actions that we garnered the information that guides us to live differently now. Just so, in our personal lives, we probably had to have a few unsuccessful relationships or jobs, learning about our negative tendencies through them, in order to gain the wisdom we have now.
In order to live more peacefully with the past, it helps to remember that once we know better, we tend to do much better. Prior to knowing, we generally do our best, and while it’s true that from the perspective of the present, our best doesn’t always seem good enough, we can at least give our past selves the benefit of the doubt. We did our best with what knowledge we had. Beyond this, we serve the greater good most effectively by not dwelling on the past, instead reigning our energy and knowledge into our present actions. It is here, in this moment, that we create our reality and ourselves anew, with our current knowledge and information.
In our journey of knowing things, many of us have had the good fortune to have encountered people whom we became friends with in a level we alone can gauge them to be. Sometimes it’s hard to come straight out and tell our friends how much we love and appreciate them. We might feel awkward expressing deep feelings, even to our nearest and dearest, because it is not a common practice. We might get choked up or embarrassed in the process, or we might fear we will embarrass them. Still, we all have those moments when we realize how fortunate we are to have the friends we have, and we may long to express our gratitude. Moreover, it may be of tremendous benefit to our friends to be at the receiving end of our appreciation. At times like these, having an intimate moment with them over dinner of your cooking at your pad or hosting a coffee party one afternoon, can help us say what we want to say. Additionally, your sincerity in making an effort on this gives your friend the space to really take in your expression of love and the gift of being able to return to it time and again.
As you sit down with them, take a moment to consider the qualities you most value in your friendship. It might be the fact that you always laugh when you talk or that you feel safe enough to confess your worst problems and always leave feeling better about everything. It might be the new ideas and experiences you’ve been exposed to throughout the course of your friendship. Whatever it is, really take the time to express to your friend their unique impact on your life. You don’t have to use big words or fancy metaphors; all you need to do is say it from your heart and your friend will feel the love in the words.
Rekindling your friendship in intimate moments, are now rare. Friends help us grow a lot in knowledge, wisdom and experience. In this New Year 2010, let us rekindle our friendship with one another and learn from that friendship what we need to learn to aide us face our coming days ahead with confidence and warmth of a grateful heart.