Should You End a Friendship Over Differences?
Questioner: As we grow up, our way of thinking does not align with our friends. We will have contradictions at many points. We start to hate them, but the way we stick with us at that time, if you want to break the relationship, if you want to break the friendship, how do you do that?
Acharya Prashant: So, you have friends, and, then as you move along and spend an year or two, you find that your thoughts don’t align? And those differences make you hateful, you said? And then?
Questioner: But the way we stick with us. We stick with us. They may be friends with us, but they do not want to be as their friends.
Acharya Prashant: Okay? So, you do not want to be with them anymore, but those friends are still sticking to you. Well, that’s very nice of them actually. You see, if you may call them rules, there are certain rules in life. If you have been with someone in periods of your unconsciousness, then don’t just drop them as you grow more conscious. If you have been with people in your childhood, if you have played with them, you have been friends with them, even if in the way of a little child, you have related to them as kids do. Seeing kids relate to each other, there’s not much wisdom in that. We cannot say the kids are relating very consciously to each other. And the kids will grow up.
So the oracle of life! Just invented that. It says that do not drop these people just because now you feel that you are better than them in some sense.
If you were them in the periods of your inner darkness, try to share the light with them if and when you receive it. Or was the relationship only about sharing darkness? How about sharing light as well?
So, you said, “Your thoughts don’t align with them anymore.” I’m assuming that you have developed in your thoughts. I’m assuming that your thoughts have gained clarity and depth, and those of your friends or peers haven’t. That’s a big assumption, first of all, but even if I proceed on that assumption, it becomes your responsibility to bring to them what you have received. Try your best. Now, after that, if they still decide to look the other way, then that’s their choice. But don’t just discard them like used stuff. There was a time when, you know, we tallied and hence we pallied, we concurred in our thoughts, and hence we were pals, no?
When two persons walk together for any length of time, obviously one of them at some point would find himself walking a bit faster. That’s inevitable. That does not mean that you leave the other one behind. That also does not mean that you’re obliged to carry the other one on your shoulders all your life, even if that person is sitting on your shoulders and beating on your head.
No, I’m not saying that. I’m not talking of contractual bondage. What I’m saying is that it’s a measure of humanness, to try to help people, especially the people who have been with you when you were younger, less brighter, less conscious.
So, it’s a thing of discretion, and it’s a subjective decision you have to make. You have to ask yourself, “Have I tried hard enough to somehow save the relationship? Have I given the relationship its due?” And obviously, no relationship carries infinite weightage. Infinite weightage is only to the one you are, but still, others are not, as we said, objects to be used and trashed.
They deserve a certain sympathy, a certain effort from your side, and an attempt to look at the world as they do. You see, we all live in our subjective universes. Technically, that’s called the ego. So, we all look at the world in very different ways, depending on where we are located, internally located. So, it helps to get into the other’s mind for a while, to understand the other’s frame of reference, and see how that person is looking at the world.
I’m not saying that one frame of reference is better than the other. No, I’m not saying that you start accepting that person as he or she is, and say, “Fine, you remain the way you are, and you’ll still remain dear to me.” Obviously, there has been an attempt to educate the other, improve the other, in that sense, change the other.
But no attempt to improve the other can succeed without compassion. You cannot forcefully change the other; that’s violence. Even if you want to change the other, you have to understand where the other is coming from, and you also have to appreciate that not too long back, you were much in the same position as the other. So, there is no point in being condescending or playing holier-than-thou. So, am I making sense, or is it very disconnected to what you have in mind?
Questioner: No, no, actually, the answer is perfect.
Acharya Prashant: Right. But avoid the other extreme as well. As we said, “We are not advocating some kind of moral bondage or permanent obligation. We are not saying that you have to carry the other on your shoulders, even if he’s unwilling to see change or improve.” At the same time, we are saying, “Don’t just throw away people like, you know, banana peels. The banana is in, and the peel is away. That’s not how humans are supposed to operate with each other, right?”
Give it a try. Give it your best shot, and persevere for a while. Have patience with people. Nobody changes in an instant. People take their own time, and they deserve that they be given a certain time to see, think, experience, and change at their own rate.
Questioner: Thank you sir.
