The Importance of Friends
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Friendships are both delicate and deep. On the one hand, they’re the most transitory of our close relationships. They come and go across our life span, depending on where we’re living, going to school, and working; and how our personal interests shift and evolve. As a simple test of this, make a list of the five closest friends in your life right now, in rank order. Then make the same list based on your closest friends five years ago. Chances are, at least some of the names and rankings will have changed.
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But at the same time, friendships are deep. For much of our lives, friendships are the most important close relationships we have. Our friends keep us grounded and provide us with support in times of crisis. When lovers betray or abandon us, or family members drive us crazy, it’s our friends we turn to for support. When everything else seems wrong with the world, and our lives seem mired in misadventure, we find solace in the simple truth shared by Clarence the Angel in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life: No one is a failure who has friends.
POSTSCRIPT
We began this chapter with an animated sea sponge who lives in a pineapple. Although SpongeBob SquarePants may be an internationally famous kids’ cartoon, it also is a tale of friendships and the corresponding complexities, rewards, and challenges that come with such interpersonal involvements.
Which friends of yours support and “coach” you in your times of need? Whom do you share your time and passionate interests with? Whom can you count on to forgive you when you inevitably let that person down?
Although the relationships between SpongeBob and his friends may be comical, they mirror the friendships we experience in our own lives. Like us, the characters were drawn to each other through shared interests. And like the bonds we forge with our friends, theirs remain cemented through communication, companionship, humor, and support.