Image Credit: https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/3918101/charity_community_diversity_friendship_group_people_teamwork_icon
I believe those who walk
away because of differences or conflicts were probably never friends in the
first place.
Never sacrifice who you are,
who you have become for a friendship. However, true friendship will never ask
you to make that choice. True friendship will never be based on conditions that
we have to agree or else. The minute this condition is spelled out and made clear
to everyone, you need to evaluate what you call friendship. It might be a friendship
of convenience.
Friendship can be tricky in
the face of conflict, disagreement, misunderstanding, especially when dealing
with those we consider true friends. The tendency is we may choose to walk
away. Walking away may be necessary to cool off from the heat of the moment,
but whether we come back or not is determined by the depth of our friendship.
Are we at a level where we can rise above our difference, value the difference,
and still be friends?
We are not expected to be
uniform in thought and opinion, be they political or religious or any other.
Our diversity should help us appreciate and embrace each other. This is a high
level of maturity. Unity doesn’t necessarily mean uniformity. Many of us find
it hard to work with people who are different from us. I like the saying, “if
two people have the same opinion on every matter, the other person is
irrelevant.” Unfortunately, we always want people who cheer us and follow us
blindly; those who don’t tell us the other side of the story. So we live our
life on a single story which is driven by us. This is a dangerous life. I know
of some people who are very good at appreciating other opinions that don't go in
line with theirs. These people have the capacity to overcome most challenges
because they can learn from others.
Sometime last year, I met a
friend who told me a story of how they were thinking of coming together to do a
joint project that all of them agreed on was for the good of young people in
leadership. This was a promising program with great potential to do a lot. As
they continued to meet and discuss the idea, differences arose, mainly driven
by interests. These differences were so much that they couldn't move forward.
The continuity of the project was hanging on a balance because this friend and
his colleagues couldn’t deal with their difference. As a result, one of them
had to walk away. Unfortunately, their friendship was greatly affected by this
move. To date, they seem to be still not able to talk as friends.
In a desire to appreciate
the difference, we should also not be too naïve to accommodate everything that
we don’t agree with. We have had friends that we realize that being committed to
them is not going to add value to whatever path we find ourselves in. As much
as we like them, but our paths are not the same. In such a case, no one will
blame you for walking away. But if you are all on the same path, don't jeopardize
the whole path because of the differences you might experience in the journey.
In Africa Youth Leadership
Forum, AYLF, one of our focus is Friendship as one of our conversation themes
and also a value we push. Not just mere accidental friendship but an
intentional friendship. We like to use the phrase, a Family of Friends when
we refer to what we are working on. We believe that if we get to a point where
we are intentional and genuinely have love among us, then we can rise above
some of the challenges that in most cases, drive the differences between us.
Some of these differences are tribal, religion, regional, class, gender, etc.
If we can overcome these differences, we can together work in building each
other and fight for the highest possible good in the lives on each other and
those we lead.
Is there a friendship you
walked away from on the basis of a difference that you could have intentionally
dealt with? How are you in handling different opinions from yours?
If this resonates with
you, go ahead to evaluate your friendship. Then look for a small community of
friends who you can do this together with. Being accountable to a few and practicing with a few.
It's about building a community of friends to share each other's journey being
true friends. You have to be deeply
committed to each other and desire to see each other grow in this journey. You
have to create support, encouragement, and accountability platform for each
other. The community has to be as small as possible so that there is active
engagement by all involved.
Find a community around you
and see if these conversations make sense to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment