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What Is Friendship for If Not the Enrichment of Your Life?
The number of friends we have may not be the most important factor, as research points out, but friends play an important role in our lives.
School has always been the initial space where friendships are formed, some for life, others for shorter periods of time as career, mobility, and college enter students' lives. But we know the value of friendship is doubtlessly beneficial to us mentally and physically because friends form a stable support system and a sense of community when there may be no other.
Friends are also sources of support and encouragement, opportunities to clarify issues, and spark new interests. Friends are golden; we need them because research tells us loneliness can be dangerous for our health and may hasten death. But we need them for the sheer joy they bring us, and we don’t need research findings to tell us that.
Friendships also play a pivotal role in building our self-esteem and sense of self-worth as we explore simple and difficult questions of life with trusted friends. In this way, we can develop the ability to clarify issues later and begin to appreciate varied viewpoints that may not be similar to our own. In other words, friendships are growth-promoting experiences. If we deny this cognitive interaction, what happens? We become stilted, rigid, and uncomfortable…
