Be Our Brother's Keeper

The past few weeks have taught me many of life’s lessons. At this point they’re all jumbled in my head as I struggle to digest them. Bottom line there are these three ones about friends that have been reinforced – albeit they’re at the point of being cliché but they’re valid none the less.

• Be careful whom you trust.
• Only your friends can hurt you.
• In adversity – your true friends will shine.

I’ve never been someone with a lot of very close friends. This doesn’t mean I am a recluse - quite contrary I can be quite the social person but I have many more acquaintances than I do friends. I don’t trust easily, but when I trust you I give you the benefit of the doubt until you’ve done something to betray that trust and cause me to be suspicious.

I’ve been the victim of a lot of hurt in the past few years - from betrayal in romantic friendships to stab in the front kind of hurt and anguish. And it’s been a long and hard road learning to trust easily again. This has caused many issues and probably pushed away sincere people because I brought the baggage of my very bad past experiences along on each new journey.

These bad experiences have taught me a few things too. Just because someone doesn’t support you the way you expect him or her to, doesn’t mean that they didn’t want to support you – maybe they just don’t know how. Sometimes we set ourselves up for hurt based on the expectations we place on other people’s reaction. Just because people have hurt you, doesn’t mean you won’t turn the other cheek to them or to another person to be hurt all over again.

I’d dare say I’ve come a long way. I’ve forged new friendships. Learnt more of a balance in these relationships. I’m a little more discerning. However, I realize that you can never be 100% right about someone all the time because you never really know what they’re made up of on the inside. If we’re honest, sometimes some of the things we do at times surprises us much less to be able to figure out someone else’s actions. And so, to let someone in makes you vulnerable.

I don’t care how strong you think you are or how independent you might be – there comes a time in everyone’s life when they face challenges and need to reach out to someone. If it’s not family, then the other majority to choose from are your friends. After all, when the good times are abounding, you can share those with just about anyone. What counts is when the difficult times are upon, the people who stick them through with you – usually your true friends.

When we trust someone and let him or her in to our lives, we share sensitive information with them. But that’s not where the trust comes in – nope. The trust is required to know that they will do the right thing by you when they use this information. Most times we’re fooled in to thinking that that shared information will lie right between the two persons and never go further. But sometimes that too can be a problem if the person uses it back on you to cause harm.

So unless we’re going to live very lonely, secluded lives (which science has proven to shorten life span), we’re always vulnerable to someone. What is ironic is that although I know all the stuff I said above, every time someone hurts me in a different way – it feels like the first time. There should be no surprise. I should expect this. Then when does it still hurt so much? Therein lies the mystery.

As mortals there is only one thing we are guaranteed in life – death. And for anyone to hurt someone while they are dealing with the experience of death, I would dare say that that is the ultimate act of betrayal. As haughty as we think we are – death is a wake up call and around those circumstances require that we respect each other then the most.

At the end of the day, when someone trusts us to be their friend, it would be nice if we remembered to treat them the way we would want to be treated. So when we backstab and hurt them – remember karma, it’s real. What will be meted out to you won’t necessarily come from the person you did wrong, or in the same form of the wrong you did, or may not even happen directly to you.

Friendship isn’t a perfect thing because it directly involves people. Anything involving people isn’t perfect because there is always human error. Let’s just remember that it’s only humane to be our brother’s keeper.