Wellness Journalism: What About Your Friends?

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin

"A friend is one who walks in when others walk out"
-Walter Winchell

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."
- Donna Roberts

"The best mirror is an old friend."
- George Herbert

What is this mysterious power known as FRIENDSHIP?

Wikipedia, the semi-final word on many things, offers an explanation:

Friendship is the cooperative and supportive relationship between people. Value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating the following on a consistent basis:
• the tendency to desire what is best for the other
• sympathy and empathy
• honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, especially in terms of pointing out the perceived faults of one's counterpart
• mutual understanding

Let’s take a closer look at some of these traits.

• Desire what is best. Friends genuinely care about your happiness and well-being. They don’t keep you around just to make themselves look good, or put you into dangerous situations without getting your permission.
• Sympathy. Friends like you enough to wear your shoes for awhile.
• Honesty. Friends will tell you that you have broccoli in your teeth, or when you’re being thick in the head. They will also tell you when you are being too hard on yourself.
• Understanding. When your neurons are in a bunch, a friend is someone with whom you can untangle the knots. A good friend sees and loves you for who you truly are, allowing you to express yourself freely without needing to be “sensitive to your audience,” or “intelligent,” or even “mature.”

Friendship is the lace in a tennis shoe or the ice cream in an otherwise empty cone.

Frodo and Sam demonstrate, in "The Lord of the Rings," that with a good friend by your side you can survive the darkest of times. The television series "Friends" shows that quirky neurotic singles working thankless jobs in a big city can have a rich and satisfying life together. Or there’s Harry Potter, who reminds us that even if you’re a powerful wizard, the greatest comfort in life is your two best friends Ron and Hermione.

Every friendship is special and unique: no two people are alike, and therefore, no two identical combinations exist. The chemistry between friends is what makes this experiment of living seem less like science and more like art.