At the beginning of this year I was asking myself, “What should I pick as my goal(s) for the coming months?”. Even though writing has never been my strong suit (unfortunately in any language :D), I felt that I should keep going to work on my blog. To keep the content more consistent, I decided to work on a series of blog posts. I was planning to write about my last year travels, however, there was this strong thought coming back to my mind to focus on ‘friendship’ as a main topic. I never expected that this topic could be such a bulls-eye, as at that time I had no clue what was going to happen in terms of the unforeseen pandemic that grip the world. It is incredible how the series of “Friendship” fits the current season. I hope that the previous posts have helped some of you to take another look at this topic. I definitely feel that I grew up by finding the right thoughts and stories of my life to inspire all of us to make some changes in our lives.

“Let’s become friends with this woman or girl/ man or boy, you see every single day, and in addition, a few times per day in the mirror”. If you have followed my previous blog posts, you might have noticed that the above sentence comes from my last post that I called “Mirror”. I am more than happy to add that I have had a pleasure to hear some positive stories of those who have overcome the fears they lived in, started believing in themselves and in the skills they have, or discovered new passions. It is also encouraging to see that many people started asking some bigger questions, ponder deeper, and no matter what culture they grew up in, the “taboo” topics are not as awkward anymore as they were before (this is what I have noticed in my relations with people and I appreciate it a lot). This is the way we learn, by asking, seeking, listening and bravely sharing our stories with others. I am really looking forward to hearing more of them in the near future. ‍

Today I will put my focus on the aspects of building our character. Let’s become friends with ourselves and take up the challenge of discovering and indicating the positive characteristics we have. Once this is done, let’s create a second, general list of the good character traits. Choose the ones that you recognise to be important to you in life but which you lack. It is so crucial to be able to recognise the traits which we lack and find out the things that do not help us in having healthy relations with others. What could be the barriers in our connections with others? Fears. Fears could be the barriers, as they stop us from moving forward. Fears could close the new open doors, the ones that we might really want to walk through (maybe the interesting or unknown places). Fears could prevent us from using our talents. Fears might stop us in living within our inner freedom and in having the healthy and deep relations with other people.

A human being was called to live in freedom and free will is proof of this. Let’s not allow ourselves to have this free will stolen from any area of our lives, as by letting it go, we might lose a lot and not gain very much.

Is freedom as important in friendship and how is this related to the main topic of this blog post? How can we fully believe and trust another person if in the reality we do not trust enough to freely speak out, or share our views, dreams, feelings, good or bad thoughts that we keep in our minds?‍

Courage is such an important character trait, which can make us and those who are surrounded by us, feel confident and peaceful multiple times. Let’s NOT allow ourselves to follow the thought: “I am not one of those who are brave” as we are able to learn everything in life if we only have dreams and those who help us to make them true. We might need a different sort of help, such us a word of encouragement or a practical aid.

If you are a young person, then life should drive you even more. Maybe it is the time to explore various activities you have never tried before. Or meet new people and take up unusual challenges. Your life is ahead of you. Maybe it is crucial to remember that we all can bring something interesting and encouraging into our friends and acquaintances' lives.

We live in the difficult times with an uncertain future. When we walk alone, then the fear about the present and future is even bigger, more acute and escalated. It is worth sharing life with friends. With those who will be supporting us and the ones that we can be of help to.

To all those who trust in God, I dedicate the Psalm 23. “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me (…)” Verse 4

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