Friendship means more than just companionship for an adult. Friendship means support, and closure, and often barricades the possibilities of an adult- you become what your friends are.

Friendship for an adult could also mean more because the adult has diverse life experiences that have formed an ideology or expectations of what friendship should be.

Friends mainly provide 4 supports for an adult.

i.                     Friends support us in the tasks of life. Living is in itself a cumbersome task that often requires skills and tact that we might not possess by ourselves all the time. We get support from friends to augment our limitations in skills and abilities required to live up to our dreams. Even on our journey of recovery, we might have requirements that we do not possess on our own, we need friends

ii. Friends save us from the seriousness/boredom of life: life could begin to lose its thrills as we step into more responsibility as we grow. The routine of work, family responsibilities, and engagements we are meant to do without necessarily loving it, can bring us to a point of boredom. A good friend knows when to get us to snap out of that routine and interrupts us with a call to vitally absorbing creative interests that would leave us refreshed, and recharged.

iii.                 With friends, we get a chance to be ourselves and loosen up: There are a lot of pretences in our world. Before many persons employers or competitors, we tend to appear like we have it figured out, or at the least have things under control even when we are overwhelmed or have no single idea about the topic. With a friend, we do not need to pretend. We need not try to appear more than we are. We can be real and loosen up.

iv.                 Friends help us give perspective to our diverse and often diverging thoughts of life. Our thoughts are often wondering. Our dreams, and imagination, coupled with fear could leave us in a paralyzing state of fear and uncertainty. Friends serve as a covering of cheer and help us put things into the right perspective by asking us deep-reaching questions about our dreams and hopes and reassuring us with what they have known about us to be true as they motivate us towards being better each day.

Now some questions:

You can pass if you want

a.       What does friendship mean to you?

b.       What qualities do you seek out in a friend?

c.       In what way, have you been a good friend to another? What lessons did you learn?

d.       What would you do differently to maximize your friendship relationships?

e.       What effects have you seen friendship play in your life, career, and overall well-being?

f.        What would you do about the people in your life who are not friends?

g.       What resolutions do you make reading/discussing the above questions and commentary?