Friends Are Our Mirror

People come and go throughout our lives. Some people serendipitously slip into your life and choose to stay, through good and bad times. They are friends.

Friends are worth more than all the world's riches. With friends, you can explore more, achieve more, and love more that no amount of money can buy. A true friend allows you to be you. They embrace your authentic self.

Friends are your mirror. Your highs and lows are reflected through their eyes. They celebrate in your triumphs and accompany you in your strife.  You continually learn about yourself through them, and they through you.

Friends will not always agree with your choices, neither will you agree with theirs. Sometimes, a friend's word or action may hurt, whether intentional or not, and vice versa.

As you remain friends, you learn to forgive them, and they forgive you. The continued cycle of learning and forgiveness is the blessing of friendship, the path of personal growth and self-discovery.

To sustain friendship over many years, you need mercy, tolerance and forgiveness. Stay in touch with friends. Make space for them. Spend quality time with them, for there is no greater treasure than this.

The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness ... to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone. David Whyte

Inspired by David Whyte's Consolations