Finding True Friends

It's inevitable that people around us will have tough stretches of misfortune and everyone is prone to this phenomenon, be it due to astrological factors or simple coincidence. People can just be themselves, maintain their credo and outlook on everything, and things might still collapse around them. The amazing thing is I see this unavoidable period (which we all face) as a cleansing - a cathartic, yet painful ratification of who really is a friend and who had simply been lingering in the fringe for fragmentary, self-serving purposes. True friends will help you through the bad times, yell and scream, but always stick around, rather than those that might further the scars and seek further self-gratification from rubbing salt in wounds rather than making an occasional sacrifice.

It's very easy to be fooled into thinking that people truly care about you, but a bad period in one's life will cleanse all the imitators from the list, and ironically it's a good thing. Much like a forest fire, it's a terrible thing but necessary and a part of nature's cycle and propensity to cleanse itself. Nobody should want a stretch of hard times to be a required device for validating who true friends might be. If there are other means to this end, may they present themselves to us all, rather than letting misfortune rear its ugly head. Many will tell you to be selfish and look toward yourself, and those are the inherently selfish ones. Those that would rather further the hurt to prove a selfish maxim, rather than sacrifice some potential bitter self-gratification in the interest of pure emotional support and loyalty.

Losing "friends" that lingered in a fringe of convenience or self-interest is a diffifult process to endure, but ultimately it gives us the intangible wisdom to learn how to identify character in future relationships and avoid the bad apples that might have snuck past our previously uneducated guard. It's been said that we can count our true friends on one hand, and even if we were four fingered cartoon characters, that axiom would remain accurate and one to remember.