wheat and chaff

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is slow-ripening fruit. Aristotle

You can build a rapport instantly with a person you just knew but I don't believe friendship works that way. It's a slow process which passes through phases and different moods. Platonic relationships which survived challenges, pressures, laughters, tears, and pressures - tested by time, so they said, outlast the others.

In my lifetime I must say, I was fortunate to meet a lot of people, different ages, different backgrounds, beliefs, and interests. But despite the overwhelming number of acquaintances whom I got close to, I only kept a few of them as friends. Self-choice.

Being so trusting, I usually give people close to me more than enough opportunity to demonstrate their affection. But as I age, I learned that there is no point trusting and making friends with people who do not return the courtesy. Thus, I ended up letting or rather making feigned friendships fall by the wayside. The process is difficult but worth doing. I've gone through an assessment of myself and the people whom I call (and thought were) my friends. And after an honest analysis (which included self-improvement plans), I successfully separated the wheat from the chaff. I was left with a few real ones, peole whom I can call true friends. The smaller circle included the friends I had for years, decades. And I am happy moving within this smaller circle than being in a pond of people who pretend to be friends but do otherwise.

This entry is my own little way of thanking my friends, you know who you are, for all the good times, hard times and everything real that you shared with me. I appreciate your friendship and I feel truly fortunate to find wheat, good quality wheat, in a seaful of chaff.

Finally, for those of you dear readers who may want to undergo the "wheat and chaff" separation process which I did, the following thought of caution from Blaise Pascal may help or may force you to start the process (ha!ha!ha!)...

Few friendship would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind
his back.

POSTCRIPT : All the best goes to two of my friends at work who recently added a year to their ages. You are truly a WHEAT!

Keep the sun shining and the rainbow peeping...hold onto that smile!