OUR
FRIENDS ARE WHO WE ARE
Once a friend approached me in my room and told me that
she wished she could be able to discover her real self. Being a specialist in that area, the personality tests like Eysenck personality
questionnaire (EPQ) clicked my head, and without faltering, I told her about
the EPQ which consists of a set questions with yes or no answers with score sheet which
shows ones level of extroversion/introversion, neuroticism/ Stability,
Psychotism/Socialization. The EPQ has a chart showing four temperaments
in which one may be categorized according to the characteristics, and they
include; Melancholic, Choleric, Phlegmatic and Sanguine.
However, my friend felt that these tests only tell who
one is on paper and most of the time they make one inclined to behaving in a
stated way according to the personality type but what she really wanted was to
see a mirror of herself and how she behaves. Thereby, l told her that if she
really wanted to know who she is, she should look at her inner circle of
friends and would get to know it all. Everyone in my room who l didn’t think
were paying any keen attention to our discussion started booing me down. Noticing
an argument was about to ensue, l knew it was time to defend my
statement…and…here goes…
“I know you can all remember this saying that was told
to us by adults since childhood- ‘show me your friends and l will tell you who
you are,’ or as my mother said in our local dialect,’Tang’na osiepni kasto
abonyisi ng’ama in.’Let’s take a moment and reflect on how we formed our
positive friendships.Every person who transmutes to become part of our inner
circles of friends is always cherry-picked in our minds, we can all avouch to
thoughts like, we like the same stuff, l like the way he thinks, we have many
things in common, he/she is as intelligent as l am we can make a great team
anytime, he/she is great to hang around with…Etc. just to mention but a few.
Hence, it’s by no surprise that friendships are formed from those we interact
with.
Anais Nin (Author) says that, ‘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. ’To further explain Anais point, we see
that friends influence us in more ways than you realize. They tend to determine
our sense of self and the direction of our lives as more than often do we
emulate them and make decisions like they do. Friends also tend to give one
vital skills, for instance, with boys on how to ‘katia’ a girl, so one uses the
methods the friend/(s) use. Friends help one define their priorities, since
it’s a fact that people tend to pick friends who are similar to them, that
means their priorities with their friends will be similar.
In conclusion, it doesn’t mean that we share all the
qualities with all our friends but how we carry ourselves is because of the
friends we have and as Jim Rohn(author, entrepreneur) says, ‘You are the
average of five people you spend the most time with. ‘And as I say, ‘be good
always and bad company will avoid you.”
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