Never forget who helped you out while everyone else was making excuses.
Have you ever heard the expression, A friend in need, is a friend indeed?
I see the world through opposite filters. I have spent most of my life being both. A friend in need and the one that a friend in need comes to in times of strife. A life that is fully in balance seems to give us both sides of that equation.
When a friend is in need, no matter how exhausted and devastated you might feel from your personal set of circumstances, when a real friend in your life cries out for help, if you are a sentient human being, you dig deep within and summon more strength, more internal power, to find solutions to help your friend traverse the chasm in their lives. That (by definition) is what a friendship is really about. Everyone will be joyous and celebrate the good times with you. They are happy to attend your parties, to cheer your success (whether they feel joy for you internally at that moment is a different discussion and I will not divert into that discussion here), and they will be with the others in celebrating the peak moments in your life.
What about the days when everything is failing? What about the day of reckoning where your dreams implode, and you are left shaking in your own shadow, wondering how to get through till tomorrow? Who is standing by your side on that day? Long gone are the participants in the party that celebrated your grand success. They are not readily available to extend a hand of support when you are feeling as if there just isn’t a tomorrow in your future.
To me, this is a metric that truly defines moral character. As shared, I have lived life on both sides of the equation. I have hit a financial rock bottom, and felt as if my whole life had imploded. I can (to this minute) remember how I felt when someone who did not need to believe in me, extended their hand in true friendship and offered me a path to salvation. When I wake up in the morning, and spend a few moments in gratitude, I reflect on those moments of core despair, and remember how their kindness lit a flame that felt extinguished in my life, and helped me to rethink my approach, and retool my steps to the next chapter. If it were not for the kindness of a small handful of friends, Sizzle would never, ever have come to fruition. It is only through their kindness and generosity that I have the privilege of pursuing this grand dream.
Conversely, I have had some phone calls in the middle of the night, that have awakened me from a sound sleep from a friend who was suffering on magnitudes I had not experienced. Being someone to understand their fears, their pain, their desperate need for someone to just simply care, was never lost on me. I have not always had the financial resources to step up and help, but I have always tried to keep the emotional resources on hand to be a mensch and try to counsel them to a safe spot in their world in which they could find solid ground upon which to stand.
As you progress and grow in life, remember… the miracle in life is not to make 100 friends. The miracle is to make 1 friend who will stand by you when everyone else has disappeared.
If you have ever experienced that in life… if you have experienced the generosity of spirit that another is capable of bringing to your life, then you know what an amazing gift it truly is…. And when you get it, loud and clear….
Then you will realize that a friend in need, is indeed, someone who really needs you to believe in them and is certainly someone you should gift with your life energy in any way that you are able.
That is what makes life livable. That is what makes humanity majestic and worthy of praise.
Happy Saturday!
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