Wise men said that hard times make the best lessons. I believe it’s true. The unpleasant experiences, difficult life choices, and hurtful occurrences reveal a lot of things about life and people – as of through those times did I find out who my real friends are.
Compared to romantic relationships, friendships might have been sitting on the back seat of some conversations. I have got a lot of questions like, “How are you and Kalvin doing?” but rarely something like, “How are you and your friends doing?”
However, I still believe that my friendships play a huge role putting more colors in my life – especially with these girls. My relationship with these girls are one of the most valuable things I can ever have in my 20s because I have realised that the older I get, the easier it is to lose friends and the harder it is to find one.
That is why I consider myself lucky enough to enjoy a real friendship with some of the most beautiful, kindest, creative, fun, and super cool women. These are the people who share their lives with me for years in the past and if God allows, also years to come. Here are 3 huge lessons about real friendship that they have taught me all these times.
REAL FRIENDSHIP MAKES EFFORTS FEELS EFFORTLESS
When it comes to the people that I love, I would do anything for them. I would jump through hoops and swim across the ocean if they need me to – and I know for sure that for me, they would, too. But these kinds of efforts feel effortless in the case of real friendships.
I don’t see them everyday. There are some days that will pass without us even talking to each other. But there is always a certain relief when I look at them and know that they will always have my back.
REAL FRIENDS TELL THE TRUTH
I am blessed to have this kind of friendships. In the era when ‘friends’ are labelled through Facebook status and Instagram followers, I have faithful friends that push me to become a better person. We are a group of people with very different characters. Honestly speaking, we can’t even trace how we got this close, but we do anyway. In one way or another, we are shaping each other with our differences. Our key is to keep things very honest. Voicing our blunt, honest opinion determines the level of your friendship. It can either deepen or broken the friendship. There is only a very thin line, but real friendships understand that friends don’t have to agree with each other all the time, and at the end of the day, what we are really doing is to support each other all the way, even if the truth hurts. We went through storms together, we disagreed from time to time, but what makes it special is how we still stand by each other no matter what happened.
REAL FRIENDSHIP IS NOT PERFECT
Do you know that perfect friendship like Cinta, Alya, Milly, Karmen, and Maura (remember Ada Apa dengan Cinta)? Well, real friendship doesn’t look like that – simply because we are not perfect. One person cannot be wise or lovable all the time, and so do I. I have learned that the ‘perfect friendship’ is one of the illusions from the Hollywood movies – and if we get carried away with that kind of expectations, we’ll get disappointed.
On the other side, we realise that we will make mistakes, hurt each other, and mess up from time to time. But, instead of criticising each other and expecting for the unreasonable type of perfect friendship, we forgive each other and learn how to be more tolerant towards each other.
Although it seems to be everywhere, friendships – real friendships are one of the rare gifts from above. Especially with these girls, I know that they have shaped me and they take part in whatever I have achieved today. Having real friendship like this makes me realize that I am lucky enough to not be alone in this vast world.
Photo by Musa Gunawan from Sweet Escape
hi miss olivia. i just wanted to say that your blog is really inspiring for me. i look forward for your next post. congrats on your engagement btw ! 🙂
Thank you, Cindy. You are so sweet!