Friendship is not possessive

Sometimes we forget that friendship is not possessive.

When we talk about our friends, we tend to use the word, “she is my friend.”

We put too much emphasize on the word, “my”.

While we can talk fondly of someone as “my friend” or even “my best friend”, we have to remember that friendship is not possessive.

We do not possess our friends. We do not own our friends.

We do not have the rights to require exclusive devotion. We do not have the rights to tell our friends what to think, and what to say.

We are often hurt when we expect our friends to defend us, and our friends keep quiet.

Part of the reason is due to the fact that we forget that friendship is not possessive.

We are often wrong in our perspective, our action and our thoughts. We cannot expect our friends to defend us when they think we are in the wrong.

If we remember that friendship is not possessive, we can thank our friends for not supporting us in our foolishness instead.

We hope that our friends can steer us away from problems, and advise us the right way to handle matter.

The only way that friendship can last for a long time is when we and our friends have balanced view of the treasured relationship.

There are certain things in life that are out of the boundary of friendship. We cannot expect our friends to tell us what to think, what to do with our lives and what to feel about people.

We cannot expect our friends to share the grief of a death in the family or the pain of a break-up. Our friends are just outsiders. While they can stay with us, and comfort us, they cannot share the grief completely, since they are not in our shoes.

The best thing our friends can do is to support us, and not to tell us how to feel. 

That is why friendship is not possessive.