In our world today, people are afraid to make friends. We are afraid to trust, to take risks. We put up walls around us and it is hard to get through. It could be for the fear of getting hurt or judged, or we genuinely believe that we can stand alone on our own, be an island.
Being an island is safe. You do not attend to other people's feelings or thoughts. You can just do anything you want and not care. You just attend to your territory. Some people are happier this way - to be left in a me, myself and I state.
But some, if not most, people need relationships. And for relationships such as friendships to flourish, we need to invest. Stephen Covey once mentioned in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, about the emotional bank account. We have to make a deposit all the time. How? By being courteous, kind, honest. By honoring commitments. Through this, we build a reserve for our relationships.
