Yours Friendly

Dear Friend

Happy Friendship day!

I had a strong urge to write to you today and hence this effort. I am sure we have our own personal definitions of friendships which we connect deeply to, but allow me to present a view which I believe deserves urgent attention.

I have a confession to make. I am a difficult friend to have. I have hardly ever been a good friend. If there was a scale, I would rate myself to be an average to below average friend. and you know it too.

I have given it a thought on multiple occasions and I have found that I usually do not enjoy the things we do together. They are the same random stuff people around you and I do, but I find them extremely tiring. I have joined you on your attempts to have fun, enjoy and create moments on multiple occasions. I have seen you forget the stress for a moment and enjoy the time spent, but at the end of the day, I was always left with a question for myself. Did I have fun? Is this what I wanted to do? Did I truly engage in the activity?. Day after day after day, I felt hollow within. I did not know why I was doing what I was doing and at the end of the day did not even enjoy doing it. I have been forcing myself to do the same things over and over and over again and I see that no one ever notices that I do not quite seem to like it.Never.Ever.

I don’t blame you. You were always kind and you seemed to like my company. I am to blame, not you. I have never been able to express clearly how I felt. After my initial experiments to like the common activities and efforts to fit in failed, I would gradually distance myself from both you and your activities. I would start with a polite no followed by a more pronounced no to an aggressive denial to cooperate. As a result of my inability to express my feelings, I have mostly taken a shortcut of being rude and avoiding the situation at any cost.

I have caused a great deal of hurt and I am deeply sorry.

I believe there is a deeper problem troubling us all. I say this not only from my own experience but from observing other’s frustrations. I am nearly convinced that the problem lies with us and Today, I write to you to offer an alternate approach to friendship.

Today we have brought down the idea of friendship to a mere idea of support or entertainment as follows.

a) I like your entertainment. Are you available for the next few days, weeks, months? Your company is a great relief from my deep loneliness within and as long as you can continue to entertain me I would love to be your friend.

b) I need you. I am going through a low and I don’t know how to deal with it. I cannot deal with it alone and hence I need you. As long as you are willing to listen to my problems and pain, let’s be friends. Once I grow out of the need we will renew the friendship based on the situation then.

Today we are more lonely than ever before. We are always looking for a way “Out of Suffering”. Today we have unlimited data packs and huge binge-watching TV show list. We are a deeply dependent and addicted generation. We have forgotten to be comfortable with our “OWN SELVES”. We constantly seek entertainment and support outside our selves and are very very demanding. We want others to work hard on and for us. We want others to produce amazing movies, TV shows and content that could help us forget our inner pain, suffering, and loneliness within and when others fail we flush our inner anger onto others and term others as failures for failing to entertain us “enough”.

Our battles are our own. Our struggles are our own. Our failures are our own. More than ever, today we need to learn to connect with our deeper selves, we need to spend time with ourselves to try and understand our own needs better. We no longer have a longing to be alone with our own selves and thoughts and enjoy the company rather we are so scared of the idea that we frantically search for ways and means to keep our selves away from us. Drug me with enough external content to never really get in touch with reality.

My idea of friendship begins with me being friends with my own self. We have our own deep dark sides which we constantly evade. It is high time we offered a friendship band to ourselves. We begin by accepting ourselves, unconditionally. our flaws, our temper, our choices, our preferences, our insecurities and everything else that bothers us.

We suffer from a high deficiency of “Self Love, Compassion, and empathy”. By finally choosing to connect with your deeper self you offer a chance to inner peace. You allow the inner life the permission not only exist but thrive. Your external life is a major reflection of your inner life. The courage to manifest the fine print of inner life on the garment of external life is an amazing source of satisfaction. When you no longer look down on yourself for the thoughts you have but live the thoughts and ideas in your external life you gain self-esteem. You learn to respect yourself more. You learn to achieve a sense of authenticity which is a direct result of the acceptance of your inner life.

Our Non-Acceptance of inner lives leads us to act in our external lives. The more we act in our external lives, the more we feel disconnected from our self. The more disconnected we feel from our self, we lose the ability to connect with anyone else. Hence the act of friendship with others is merely an act until you deeply and thoroughly accept your inner lives. Your inner lives offer you much more joy than external life can ever offer. When you have truly learned to thrive internally, the inner joy can no longer stay bound. It flows, it overflows onto others. It is now that you are ready for external friendships. When you have your brand of joy emanating from deep within and not from weak external sources I promise, I will enjoy your company and you mine. Until then we are not ready yet. We will probably never be perfectly ready. We will continue to learn more about ourselves. We will find deeper tragedies within but we will try to find the strength to face them and not run away from them. The more challenges I face the stronger I become within and this will help me, in turn, to help you when you are facing your demons within.

Our friendship is neither weak nor fake. It is just a bit undercooked. Let us take time and attention to nourish ourselves from within. Let us take conscious steps to connect within and develop inner strength and authenticity. May we truly find joy in manifesting our inner thoughts onto our outer actions. The more we do so, the more worthy we become of attracting quality friends in our lives.

On this friendship day, this is my prayer for all of us. May we truly find opportunities to be friends with ourselves. May we all learn to offer our love, attention, support, and forgiveness to ourselves. May we grow stronger daily in pursuit of a richer inner life. May we gather strength to be courageous enough to live our inner lives confidently and authentically. May our inner lives fill our outer lives with intensity. When we have tried our best to create the life we approve in our hearts, I believe we would be ready for a deeper level of friendship and I am excited to be a part of it.

In the past few months, I have set myself up on a journey where I aspire to be courageous in implementing my inner lives more confidently on my outer actions. I invite you onto a similar journey of self-exploration and expression. May I learn to be friends with myself before I offer you my friendship.

Yours Friendly

Debanjan Chakravorty