A Lesson In Friendship~My Sister’s Keeper

I posted last week how I was given the opportunity to speak to a group of young ladies.  Well, during the conversation with them I asked “What is the best thing to do if I have an issue with her (pointing to their coach), talk to her or tell someone else?” Well, a couple of the girls said “tell someone else.” I then asked “Why” and one of the young ladies said “Well, wouldn’t that hurt her feelings?”  I said what do you think would hurt more, me telling her (again pointing to their coach) and saying “There is something that you do that bothers me” or telling someone else, then she hears it from them and of course, have more maybe added to it?”  I could see the light bulbs come on.

I told these young ladies that most of us are pretty much let go into the world without real lessons in how to be a friend so we emulate what we see others do. The awful part about this is that most of us continue to do the same when we become women.

Today, I got to thinking “When you talk behind someone’s back is it that you’re being nasty or that you really don’t want that person to know how you really feel?”  The one thing that I told these young ladies is that when you tell someone how you really feel, you allow them the opportunity to fix the problem. If you don’t tell them, you don’t allow them to fix it. Giving someone the opportunity of knowing how you feel about something and even if they tell you that they can’t fix it, at least now you know that it’s something they can’t help or they don’t want to fix, either way you know the reason and you can move on from there.  But in the grand scheme of things, why wouldn’t someone really try to fix something that you don’t like?  It’s all about intentions. Do you want the problem to go away or not? Are you willing to fix it or not?

When we become our sister’s keepers we begin to treat each other with respect. We won’t seek to hurt each other with our words or actions. Of course, this will not happen overnight but the goal is to consciously give thought to how we should treat one another before we take action.