What separates a good friend from a great one? Aditya Singhal shows us.
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Some friends and I were going to one of my friend’s brother’s wedding reception. We started talking about relationships and love. One of my friends said he has had his heart broken once, and now he thinks its better to just have a friend with whom you can flirt, and share your secrets with, but not love.
That way, there will be no chance of a heartbreak, or any other emotional toil. That way, the fear of languishing in love will never cross us. Love would be for fun and for keeping oneself together through tough times. You can depend on this other person and that other person can depend on you, but there wont be any strings attached, per se. Your “love” will be greater than a friend but will not be your lover, or your romantic partner. They will just be there for you, and you will be there for them. This way you will never feel alone. You can share your secrets with this person, give them a view into your soul and take a view of theirs.
As my friend finished speaking, the thought struck me; more like a word, a word to describe such “friends” in our life. It was like a concept, an obvious fact that each one of us knew and took advantage of. That friend you just cried to, that friend you just told all your life-long secrets to, or maybe that friend to whom you confessed your deep seated evil desires. At the very moment that my friend finished speaking, a word gleaned through my mind for such friends. A word fitting their role in our lives.
“LIFE SAVERS”
I call these people life savers, they help you mend the broken heart, or keep your emotions under check so you can enjoy the world, all the time knowing you have one friend who understands you and with whom you can do all things crazy. You can just be you, and share everything. Everyone has one of these “Life Savers”, you may or may not realize it, but they will be somewhere near you. It can be a long lost friend or a recent stranger who suddenly became very close. That’s the concept of a life saver.
But it doesn’t end their. Does it? We are humans, and to share our emotions with someone else, is to let them view our souls and give them the power to decide whether they want to stay with us or not. Whether they can love us, albeit our malevolence. The incontrovertible truth is that there is evil in all of us and it’s always going to be there. Each one of us has done something “dark” in our life . Something lying on the dark side. Now, it can be something bad or abhorrent, but we all have done it. Or we will do it sometime in the future. However, there is another truth which cannot be argued upon; there is good in all of us too. We have done good deeds too, and these good deeds shine more than the bad ones.
It’s up to the life savers to choose to look at our bad deeds and leave, or look at our good and stay. But, the main problem arises when you fall in love with the life savers, and you will. Maybe you’ll fall in love before they become life savers, maybe you’ll fall in love afterwards; but whats certain is that you will. What do you do then? How do you get them to stay? Will they ever look at you for the person you will become, rather than the person you were? Or will they leave you and your heart crushed?
Suddenly, it led me to a glaring truth; there can be no life savers. Only life destructors. What’s even more terrifying is the fact that you depend on these life destructors to live, yet live in a state of fear that they can destroy it. Anytime.
And that my friends, is why, there is no black or white; only grey.
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