“This is a chance for what really matters to show itself. Your life gets more concentrated, so let’s go on laughing to the end.” That is what a true friend said.
None of us can avoid being shaped by the people around us.
Which is exactly why who you keep company with matters so much.
Four kinds of true friend and four kinds of false one
The Buddha said as much: four kinds of people are enemies,
and “you should know that they are merely things resembling friends”,
teaching us to “keep an enemy at a distance, as you would avoid a dangerous road”.
I knew nothing about the world — foolishly little.
So I could not tell the false friends apart, and I was hurt and cried a good deal.
But there are things you never think about unless you take on something like this,
and things I had been shutting my eyes to.
Five measures
- Someone who stays quietly beside you when your spirits are gone
(≠ someone who leaves the moment your shine goes) - Someone who guides you to the right action when your judgement has failed
(≠ someone who is all talk, dressing up friendship with talk of the future) - Someone who did not abandon you when you were cornered
(≠ someone whose words are smooth on the surface with nothing behind them) - Someone who cries with you when it is hard and is glad with you when things go well
(≠ someone who gives as little as possible and takes as much as they can, chasing only their own gain) - Someone who defends you when others speak ill of you
(≠ someone who flatters you to your face and talks behind your back)
What really matters becomes visible when things are hard
False friends and true ones — what really matters is hidden inside the hard parts.
Fourteen thousand kilometres across the world in a classic car,
37 days of the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge.
The road to it is not simple,
and the challenge of reaching the start line is still going on.