Friendship Trust and Truth
The term friend is all to casually used; often the most casual acquaintances are
referred to as friends. What then is there to be found in friendship with someone,
which can not be expected from anyone that you may happen to meet? How is true
friendship different than the casual relationship the word is so often used to
describe?
Friendship should not be assumed. Friendship is given as the natural result of a
relationship that grows between those who have come to know and trust eachother.
The seed of friendship is planted when people meet and find sufficient interest
in eachother that they want to become better acquainted. Over time, as they explore
their common interests and differences, and take part in activities together they
come to a mutual understanding of how involved their relationship will become. A
major portion of this is the building of trust each with the other. Through
conversation and activities, tested by time, they each learn if the other is
consistently truthful. If they find they share interests, honesty, and are not
widely separated by differences, they have left acquaintanceship and have become
friends. Of course friendship is defined individually by each of us and is held in
degrees according to how intimate and reliable the relationship is. My point is
that friendship can not exist without important shared knowledge between two people
in a trusting relationship. Given this, we must remember that friendship is a
two-way relationship. We will not long have a friend if we are not a friend in return.
Trust should not be freely given; least by those who value friendship. Trust must
be earned. This is rightly so because the more one trusts another person the more
that trusted person has power to harm the one who trusts. There are three aspects
to trust. We value the holding our confidential information in confidence. We
value being told the truth and that promises are kept.
Holding confidential information can be difficult; it is best to know the least.
Of course there are those who love to discover a secret and spread it to their
advantage. They are to be pitied; for they surely have no friends. When holding a
confidence, an unscrupulous or foolish person sometimes probes one, that they might
discover a secret. Prudence has it that it is best to make it clear, as quickly as
possible, that no information will be forthcoming. Burdening another with confidential
information when they do not want to know it is both unwise and unfair to the other.
Telling the truth is a most valued virtue. Confidences must be held; hold them
without lying. The truth, can be used as a weapon in the cause of evil; people will
sometimes tell a truth where the only purpose is to cause harm. As a blatant
example, someone at a social gathering may speak up and say of another in the group
"...never graduated from high school..." then claim "I just told the truth". Such
attempts to hide behind truth are a sham. The reason for such a statement is to
cause harm to the person who was the subject of the attack. The telling of such truth
is no virtue. Promises should not be given easily; a promise is a future truth that
has been predicted. One who is unsure of their ability to meet a commitment must say
so when the commitment is made.
Friendship is one of the finest parts of life. We are fortunate to have friends because
they enrich our lives. Friends provide us the support and freedom to learn and do
things we would not be capable of alone. Also, most importantly, when we have a friend,
we are not alone.
You may be thinking, "Where does this one stand on this?" Fair enough. I make no claim
to perfection; I sometimes fall short of my goals for myself. What I have written is
what I strive for.
Copyright © by Liesel Siobhan
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