The Snithe; People to Have in 2020

**Have friends you can count on and ones who encourage you to grow.** *Photo courtesy of medium.com*

We sat for a chat with a close friend of mine last week. Well, the chat wasn’t defined in terms of specific agenda for that particular day and within no time we had started discussing about friendships. It was interesting to note that he too had a unique cream of friends just like me.

One such kind is the type that is trying to please the larger digital space following. The type that can go an extra mile to borrow their hearts out so that they can live in denial as self-level, while giving false impression to the rest of people mostly online that they are doing really well.

Another type is the one always coming to us when they only have problems. There is a rather funny quote that says, ‘Help a friend in distress and he/she will remember you again when in distress.’ These are the guys; seasonal kind of friends.

The third type are the ones who are massage therapists. We are good to them all the time. Even our stupidity and nonsensical stuff seem right to them. They may see where we are doing things wrong and they won’t tell us. These guys are the ones who get opportunities and sit on them because they always want us to be just where we are.

This is just a simple peek into the type of people that surround our lives. They may differ from person to person but in most cases they will fall in one of the three categories with exceptions to the type of people I am going to highlight that we need to have for keeps in 2020.

On top of the list of people to keep in 2020 is the people who genuinely love us. We have all struggled at one point in time with the wonder if people really love us the way they say. They could be the special ones in our lives who are our wives, husbands, boyfriends, fiancés who mean a whole world to us to our closest and best friends.

Of such, we are to love them and cherish them dearly. We should let them know that we desire they love us earnestly and tirelessly too in 2020. At the end of a tiring life; a stressful day, a failed deal, a conflicting meeting, an awful experience, we need a shoulder to lean on and find solace.

In 2020, be more daring with your special loved ones. Tell them you love them as often you can. Remind them that you are grateful for them in your life. I discovered the importance of this when a friend shared how he lost his wife. And many others I know who lost their parents and siblings and wish they loved them more than they did when they lived.

Second on the list is the crop of friends who push us out of our comfort zones. I am aptly sure that there is no one who rarely wants disturbance when they are relaxed. Some of us get too relaxed at some points in our lives where we find ourselves feeling like ‘we just arrived.’ The feeling can hemorrhage us if we don’t find someone who can stir our comfort zones for us to leave them.

We need that one friend or friends who will volunteer to be your accountability partners and ensure that you do what you define yourself to do at any point in time. Words are merely worlds unless they are followed by action. That action has to be accounted for. And often friends are the auditors.

Then there is the group of people who you can always confidently seek advice from and share with them the least and greatest of your fears. For instance, you could have been suffering from suicidal thoughts and wondering if you will ever find your purpose in this life. There is a group of people who can help you out of your situation. If you got them, keep them.

As a matter of fact, even though life gets better as they say, stress and other issues of life don’t decrease. In fact they ‘get better too’ in that probably they increase. It thus calls that we have these people around the corner to come to our aid in times of need.

They should be trustable people who will be willing to walk with us and guide us through life as need be. Again they should be versed with the ability to mentor and offer a kind of advice without judging us because we are all often weak in different and varied ways.

Finally in 2020 keep the friends who help you grow. The ones who are expanding your network. The successful ones who keep inspiring you to raise your bar high enough and encourage you to go for it. Be close to them and be open to let them know that you need them to help you grow to as high as you can.

Once you get this kind of friends, your 2020 will be a bit better and you will realize it was a worth year to have lived.

End.