With a little help from our friends

As the song "With a little help from my friends" played, my mind wandered to an earlier discussion with a friend about helping out in times of crises. Many people don't know how to help or they help on their terms. We were talking about a time when my friend needed help and some people said "I can help, what do you need"....when he told them what he needed, the response was..."oh, I can't do that", not what can I do.... He found out very quickly who is real friends were.

True friends are rare and hard to find, but if you have a true friend they will support you and love you and understand, no matter what choices you make. If you ever make a choice that they don’t agree with, they'll understand that it was your choice to make. If they don’t understand that – then it’s time for you to let go of that friendship because you've grown in different directions.

My suggestion is if you have a friend in stress or crises, don't offer help and then put conditions on that help. When we are in crises and are just barely coping with whatever situation we find ourselves in, we need to have support. Many of us don't have family close by anymore that helped us and so we rely on friends, but friends mean well but sometimes don't know how to respond effectively.

For example, while it is possible for one happy person to spread happiness to their friends, the reverse is also true — a mildly or chronically depressed friend can bring their friends down as well. It helps to have a diverse group of friends to lessen this impact.

It's also important to be a good friend yourself, providing others with as many of the benefits of friendship (infectious happiness, social support, someone to confide in, food in times of crisis) as you can. 

When I was growing up in the East Kortney’s, from what I read in my mothers' diary, we as a family did not have very much and we had to rely on our extended family, and friends for support and help. That help was given unconditionally. Today many of us have moved away from family or some people are single children and have no close family to help. So if you can offer help when asked, do so only if you can offer help unconditionally. I try to do this and I think it is because my family received the support when we needed it.