| | Bridges
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I remember on the first day of seventh grade the school hired some dreadlocked, rastafarian-esque inspirational speaker to come and talk to us. I recall thinking it was pretty lame, but sat through it anyway. In the past few years, though, some of what he said has been coming back to me.
The centerpiece of his speech was a metaphor he had concocted likening friendships to bridges. When you become friends with someone, a bridge is jointly created between the two of you to share you experiences. When friendships are broken, the bridges just don't collapse, they have to be torn down. But each party can only tear down their half. The other party can leave their part of the bridge up.
And the point he was trying to make was that even if one of your friends tears down their half of the bridge, leave yours up. Leave open the chance to reconect the bridge. Don't hold a grudge for that. Because why should you? What's the point? How does it benefit you to go out of your way to dislike someone? I always leave that bridge up, because there's no reason to tear mine down, too. Friendships can end for some pretty stupid things, but as long as one person is willing to leave their gate open and rebuild the friendship, they never really go away.
Which goes to an even deeper point: why do some people go out of their way to dislike other people? Honestly, what do you get out of that? I know a lot of people that always complain about certain individuals, and it really gets on my nerves. Why the hatred? Why so eager to be negative? As RI once pointed out:
"my standard is why shouldnt i like a person, not why should i like them."
I can only think of one person I honestly, truly dislike. Then there are a few people I'd just rather not be around, and then there's everyone else. Most people, I've found, are really nice! They're courteous, funny, interesting, and overall good people. You can jump to conclusions about someone you've talked to a few times, but you don't really know them at all, how can you honestly say you dislike them? You'll meet a lot of new people and make a lot of new friends if you're a bit more open.
So don't tear down bridges and don't try to dislike. All it does it hurt your relationships, and that's no fun. Just having a less negative outlook will do wonders for you, and you might even find yourself in a better mood!
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Whoo!
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| | Posted 10/7/2006 12:29 AM - 32 Views - 14 eProps - 7 comments
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