A few months back, I had an interesting conversation with one of my friends. He told me that he no longer could depend on anybody because people are usually selfish and there is no such thing as true charity in this world...not even friends.
I asked him what happened and he cited to me a few examples of how he wanted some help from his friends which they never gave. Even I, was guilty of it as he related to me an incident that caused him to feel dissapointed about me. This left me puzzled.
He told me that some where around last year, he had a friend (lets call him X) was in depression. X would call my friend at weird times in the night to talk about his problems. My friend would occasionally call X to check on him and see that he was alright. But, there was one night, where my friend received a suicidal message from X. X wanted to kill himself and my friend wanted to call X to check on him, but in vain because X was rejecting his calls.
So my friend phone his other friends at 1AM in the morning to request for their help in calling X. He just wanted to ensure that X was ok. So I happened to be one of the lucky ones he requested for help. He asked me to phone X and ask him a few questions to see if he was alright. Unfortunately, I was about to go to sleep and what he told me on the phone sounded like some kind of joke because firstly,
I have never heard of my friend tellng me about X before despite the fact that we chatted almost every other night. Secondly,
my friend has a proven track record in playing pranks at weird times of the day. He has called me in the middle of the night for no reason at all other than to say "hello" or "hi" before.
So naturally, I thought it was some kind of joke ,not some kind of emergency situation, and I hung up on him. This caused him to develop the thinking that "people are selfish and thus, you cant really depend on anyone".
I had a nice debate over his thinking that night because I couldnt understand what he meant by "You can only depend yourself and not others".
I think I finally understood what he meant by that. Something happened to me a few weeks back that caused me to feel the same way too. (
isnt it weird that "something" must always happened before you can learn something from it"? lol...)I happened to be involved in a dispute with my ex-cca chairman. I was trying to get back the membership fees which I paid without full knowledge of what I was paying for. And the chairman was originally ok until he became very aggressive in the conversation and started being ungentlemanly in his manner of speech. I dont like it when people are agressive towards me, although I can remain calm, it somehow affects my feelings. So I turned towards one of my friends in the same cca for some support.
But instead of saying some words of support he made statements that left me feeling sad and hurt. And he ended it off with "do what you want and dont tell me about it. I dont wanna know about it".
I couldnt sleep that night and the next morning I started crying even though I was telling myself that he was probably in a difficult position to support me too. And I had a competition on that same morning too. But the damage had been done. At the time when I needed some help, I was forsaken and left to fend for myself. Its not a nice feeling.
Would things have been different if I had shown abit more tolerance and patience towards my friend that night? Would I have been a happier person if my friend had supported me and not pre judge me that night?(
sure, he might have his reasons for switching off, but it was at a time where he was the best person who could assist me)Im not saying that anybody was in the wrong. Perhaps, the lesson here is that we should not be quick to prejudge others based on past experiences but instead give others the benefit of the doubt and help them when they ask for it. And when that happens friendships between friends would be much better. :D
