Do you have a friend to go to when you need a dose of unvarnished truth? A no-nonsense friend to:
- Provide you with an honest appraisal about …… you?
- Provide you with an “Honest to God” reality check?
- Provide you with the non-sugar-coated truth?
This is important today when we’re getting our information from so many different sources. It’s easy to pick and choose our self-styled truths to justify even the most outlandish behavior. What I have learned the hard way is that thinking it so doesn’t make it so.
Twenty-three years of hangovers surely taught me this lesson.
There are two ways to be fooled.
So who in your life can you trust to keep you from playing the fool ?
I remember a time back in 1974 when I was feeling crushed by a really difficult break-up. For a time I fell into a deep funk. I experienced a level of depression I’d never known before, and everything about me seemed totally black. I was pretty young, just 25, but by my own reckoning my life was over.
Then I met a guy named Geoff and got my first taste of no-nonsense friendship.
Geoff was a no-nonsense kind of guy, hard to bullshit. Geoff got a fix on me early and had the guts to share with me what he saw. At the time there was a huge discrepancy between who I was inside, and what I portrayed to the outside world. I’d gotten away from myself during my time in this failed relationship. I’d been playing a kind of role, like an actor. The trouble was I’d never taken off my costume or the stage make up I wore while playing the role. So when the end came I was a stranger to myself and, I might add, a bit of a liar.
At the time Geoff met me I was not willing to:
- Own up to my part in the break-up
- Accept the truth of where I stood
- See the new beginning in the present moment
I found in allowing Geoff to provide me good counsel, all kinds of good things happened. He never failed to speak the truth and I learned to take advice that wasn’t sugar-coated. Geoff’s honesty with me helped me get beyond the pride that had been my great nemesis. From this kind of straight-up friendship:
- I got my mojo working
- I learned to laugh at myself
- I stopped taking myself and the rest of the world so seriously
Geoff taught me a great lesson, one that continues to feed me till this day. Some friends need to be of the no-nonsense variety, the straight shooters who can both hit their target and stand by their target after it’s been hit.
We need our no-nonsense friends during our toughest times to help us uncomplicate our lives so that we can see the forest through the trees.
Just a Thought…
Pat
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