How Someone Can Be Your Friend by Not Contacting You
An unusual lesson on friendship and kindness
We think our best friends are the ones who call us more regularly.
Sometimes we even measure the degree or value of a friendship by the number of interactions we have with the person involved.
My friend Peter taught me something very different. He has proven to me that, in some situations, being a good friend requires keeping a distance.
How it happened
A few months ago I had a few difficult weeks at my day job. I was full of work, I had more tasks than I could handle.
On top of that, a co-worker was away on vacations and I had to replace him, so I had also all his work to do.
It was a very complicated time. I worked all day long for several weeks but even with all my effort, there was always more and more to be done.
Every day I received calls asking to do something more, and many of those calls came from the department where my friend Peter also works.
That department was finalizing several projects at the same time and, because of that, they were all requesting several tasks that are usually performed by the person who was away on vacation and that I was replacing.
Peter’s colleagues kept calling me every day, always with urgent matters. It was hard to deal with.
After a few crazy weeks, my colleague returned, and slowly things got back to normal.
One week later, Peter sent me an email asking for my help with a work situation.
I did what he asked, and in my reply wrote: “I hope you had a good vacation”.
To my surprise he said he had not yet taken his vacation, he would only do that later.
Surprised, I mentioned that, as I had not heard from him in a while, I thought he was on vacation.
Although, he replied: “I thought about sending you my request earlier, but I saw my colleagues were already sending you too many things to do, so I decided to wait and send my request later”.
I was surprised and grateful to him for the consideration he had shown.
In my reply, I thanked him for his kindness and also for the lesson he taught me.
He was able to be a good friend and colleague. He has helped me just by not adding anything more to a situation that was already more than I could handle.
What I learned
Thanks to Peter’s unusual attitude I learned a couple of things about friendship.
I learned that to help our friends, in difficult times, we must always take into consideration the situation they are facing. It’s based on those facts that we can find the best way to help, that we can decide what is best to do (or not to do).
I also learned that we can receive help without even knowing, something we usually forget. If I had not asked Peter about his vacation, I would never have known he helped me.
This situation also proves we can be friends with someone without having to tell them all the things we do for them. The spoken words are not the most important thing.
True friendship is not the sum of the things someone does for us — that may not be the most accurate way to measure it, as this story clearly shows.
Peter’s attitude also led me to be more cautious when I think about contacting someone. Just because it is the right time for me, it does not mean it’s the right time for them. If I know someone is having a hard time, I should think if contacting him is or not the right thing to do — will that help him or not?
Maybe being someone’s friend is more than just thinking about what we can do for them. Sometimes it may require considering what we should not do.
Thank you, Peter, for your help.
Thank you, Peter, for this beautiful lesson on friendship and kindness.
About the Creator
Zen Michael
Happiness in on the Way, not at the end of the road. Calm, joy, meditation and creativity shape the Way. Don’t search for happiness and it may find you.
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