How not to make a mistake in choosing friends? Perhaps a fruitful relationship should be considered one that satisfies four needs: support, harmony, challenge, and inspiration.
In childhood, friendships are formed by themselves. The first friends are the children of our parents’ friends, neighbors, peers from kindergarten. With someone we liked to play football or dolls, watch cartoons together.
As adults, we begin to make more demands on our environment. We want close people to be a reliable rear for us, a safe haven in which we can hide from life’s storms.
But sometimes we need a challenge to move forward.
And then there should be those who will inspire us on the path to the unknown. And if we, like Oblomov, are mothballed in our development, Stolz is needed to drive us off the soft sofa.
Psychologist Robert Wicks has spent many years studying the relationship between resilience and support from loved ones. He identified four needs that are important for sustainable personal development: harmony, support, challenge and inspiration.
If there are people in our environment who help us meet these needs, then we are lucky. If not, it’s worth finding them.
1. Guru
You are unlikely to meet him in a noisy company, where the conversation jumps from one topic to another. It is better to talk with him face to face, and these conversations always lead to deep reflections.
It is he who encourages us to develop, to think about fundamental questions.
Who do we feel like? What is stopping us from moving forward? What motivates us? This is a person who is next to us, guides us and is always ready to give wise advice. He does not judge, but he does not console.
2. Partner
It is he who courageously remains to wash the dishes after a stormy party, when all the guests have already left. When you need help, his phone number pops up in your head first.
His positive attitude always works wonders – a tight tangle of problems suddenly unravel with ease, and the waves of our despair break against the wall of his optimism.
His mental fortitude and ability to find simple and clear solutions is an excellent antidote to routine and self-flagellation.
3. Troll
When we are vulnerable and looking for sympathy, he is clearly not the one we need. A master of provocative questions and biting remarks, he is sometimes unbearable. But his tactlessness has a downside – the ability to see the hard truth behind the heaps of empty words.
His irony acts like a cold shower: we stop feeling sorry for ourselves, being capricious and making an elephant out of a fly.
4. Mastermind
Only yesterday we discussed with him that it would be nice to jump with a parachute – and this morning he is already signaling at the entrance to go to the airfield.
Ideas that would take weeks of thinking suddenly become reality in a couple of days
Go on an expedition to the North Pole? Elementary! Learn to play instruments and form your own band? There is nothing easier!
Friends don’t have to be like that. But many of our acquaintances can become like beacons for us, and for someone we ourselves will turn out to be an inspirer, guru or partner. Or maybe a troll?