Friendship is one of the greatest treasures available to people. People who have many friends are lucky because they have significant support and will never be alone. However, true friendship is even more important and valuable because it is a rare and unique phenomenon. It emerges between individuals at a certain stage of their relations’ development and affects them throughout their lifespan. No matter what happens in their lives, people remain close to each other and are always ready to help or spend time together. In such a way, true friendship can be defined as unique relations characterized by an improved understanding of another person’s peculiarities, positive emotions resulting from any interaction, and self-sacrifice to help a friend.
The perfect understanding of another person’s character and visions is one of the first characteristics of a true friendship. As I stated previously, this relationship lasts for the whole life. However, being close to a person is impossible if his/her values and ideas are unclear. In other words, true friends share their views and have similar representations, which makes their bond stronger. It also helps to move together, achieve various goals, and discuss difficulties emerging on the way to success. In such a way, mutual understanding, shared values, and similarities in mentalities are the key factors typical for true friends.
Moreover, true friendship is a generator of positive emotions and pleasant memories. For example, every person has a funny or positive story he/she can remember and share. Usually, such stories revolve around close friends and good times spent together. A really happy person has many memories of this sort, indicating that his/her life was full of pleasant events and friends supported him/her. In such a way, true friendship is an inexhaustible source of positive emotions needed for everyone to feel better and understand their lives are full of events that can be remembered. Even small talk with a true friend on a park bench can be remembered many years later because of the feelings it provoked.
Finally, self-sacrifice is one of the major factors differentiating friendship from true friendship. It implies readiness to disregard a person’s needs or interests at the moment, to help a friend move through difficult times, perform some tasks, or be close to ensure his/she is not alone. It is very close to the idea of marriage when people swear to go through thick and thin together. True friendship is a similar type of relationship as it rests on an emotional bond that lasts for the whole lifespan. For this reason, true friends can be viewed as relatives and the closest people, which implies readiness to share all positive and negative emotions and act regardless of personal interests and tasks.
Altogether, true friendship is a unique phenomenon that can make people happier. It is a source of positive emotions and support, which comes from the improved understanding of a person’s character, needs, and expectations. At the same time, true friends can be viewed as close people ready to sacrifice their own time and interest to help each other cope with complex tasks and move forward. For this reason, true friendship is one of the greatest gifts that make people happier and more confident and guarantees that life will be easier for those who are blessed with this virtue.