Cultivating Happier Friendship

Paramjit Singh

ENG 101.

11/06/2010

               

To have a happy life people should have friends.  Without friends a person’s life may feel very lonely at times. But we must cultivate relationships so we can have good loyal friends around us. There are many ways to cultivate relationships between friends. One way is to give time to understand each other, be honest and spend time with other people to find  how much you may have in common such as where you work or after school sports. These are just few ways that will be helpful in establishing greater relationship.

Many people believe they do not need friends in their lives but without friends life may feel lonely.  When I was sixteen I kept myself isolated from other classmates and peers, thinking that no one could understand my life but me. So for a while I felt lonely. While other class mates went to movies, shopping malls or other places as a group, I would just stay home. And when everyone would come to school the next day they would talk about the exciting time they all had together.  When I turned seventeen, I started to ask myself questions such as, why I did not go out and meet some friends. After giving much thought, I started to interact with other classmates and soon they invite me to the movies and shopping malls.

Having friends in my life, made me happy and my school years fun and exciting. I thought to myself why I did not make friends earlier in my life such as in middle school. Then I came to the conclusion, the reason I did not want to make friends was because I thought if I try to interact with other people and make friends, they would laugh at me because English was a second Language for me at the time. And I was not fluent with it, since I just moved from Indian to the United States. But after making friends not only was I happy but I learned English well and quickly, also I started to know a lot about American life styles.

When making friends we must choose the ones that are loyal and honest to us. The key to cultivate friendly relationships is to be built upon trust. If there is no trust between you and friends, then people may feel more like a stranger to you and may not care about your feelings and thoughts. So, we need to choose wisely who we expect as our true friends. For example,  someone experience peer pressure they may do something such as drinking or smoking one can tell that person feels more like an enemy who is trying to hurt you rather than being a loyal friend. According to Adolescent Substance Abuse “30% of teens are offered drugs in high school and middle school” and “32.2% teens try their first drink of alcohol before the age of 13”. But sometimes we are confused is our about who is our friend. Often they may not be friends. Example, when I was in high school a someone who I thought was a loyal and a honest friend told me if I do not smoke I will not fit in with the cool group of people. From that point on I knew that the person was more of a enemy than a true friend and I stayed away from him.  As one grows older and has better education and common sense he/she will realize right from wrong and can choose friends from foes.

Another way for people to have an even wider spread and cultivate happy relationships is to interact with colleagues at work. When you interact with other colleagues that work with you, not only does it make the day go faster but one can become good friends and can benefit from each other. For example, if you live far from work and it is raining or snowing, you can call a friend from work and ask him/her to give you a ride to work. If you are a student you can join an after school program such as football or soccer. When meeting people you need to decide whether you and the other person have things in common to for a cultivate friendship.

There are many ways for one to cultivate happier relationships with friends such as, to give time to understand each other, be honest and spend time with other people to find  how much you may have in common such as where you work or after school sports, which will cultivate a happier relationship.