“By acting as mirrors, friends help us define who we are, reflect our selves back to us”…
“Great friends enrich our lives in so many ways. Through a magical combination of both similarities and differences, friends offer us the opportunity to really know ourselves and help us grow, into who we want to be. Our core similarities attract us to each other, simply comforting us with familiarity and admiration.
Friends also help us discover ourselves, through our differences. Differences allow us to see other perspectives and make choices about who we want to be. Sometimes, we are drawn to those who appear to be our opposites, and we learn to accept the parts of them we love and the parts of them that don’t resonate with us, thus allowing us a valuable learning experience.
By expanding our understanding to include others’ experiences, friends help us accept others. By understanding when someone’s life differs from our own, we can learn about ourselves in contrast. There are times when we see in friends what we don’t like about ourselves. That mirror reflection may be hard to take, but a good friend helps us find ways we can change and supports us, in that choice.
Part of the joy of friendship is the feeling that we are accepted just the way we are, with no need to change. It is a gift they give us, and one we can give back every day. Ultimately, we choose friends because they make us feel good about ourselves and life. Through tears, differences and difficulties, friends help us find the laughter.