Why you should be selfish when choosing your friends.

Selfish or selfishness is a word most people like to be hypocritical about, we all hate to be called selfish while denying the fact that we all are selfish in one way or the other. Selfishness is a natural and human attribute we all possess, well of course like foolishness and kindness some of us take it to the very extreme. People only identify selfishness when they are at the receiving end, you never hear anyone talking about selfishness when he or she is the culprit. I am selfish and I do not hesitate in telling anyone that cares to know, well certainly I am selfish in the healthy way, like not compromising my precious time and pleasure for someone else benefit (I only believe in mutual benefit not the other way round), or booking that hotspot in the restaurant for my date.

But there is obviously one thing I am most selfish about, well maybe not “most selfish” about, that’s my choice of friends and associates.

Ok now let’s try and think about everything we own in our lives, whether it’s the people, the reputation, the job, the career or the fortune…etc. Now ask yourself, did all these things just end up in front of you without a certain degree of your choice? Of course not, everything in your life came to you because at some point in your life you made a selfish decision and chose to have it, whether that decision or choice has turned out to be positive or negative. Like for instance if you have a job you hate, it could be because at some point in your life you decided not to go to school and study or when you were in school didn’t bother to study hard, it could also be because you chose to work by taking the job rather than do a business or stay at home and sleep. It all involves selfish choices we make. Anyone with a "fish brain" knows that there are certainly some things in life that we have to choose very carefully, such as careers, partners, clubs etc and other things we don’t have to spend too much time on like the brand of you PC for instance. Some people don’t even care about the choice of the car they drive or their bank or insurance company, which is cool with me but am sure those people would now have a second thought after the recent financial crisis that is sending shivers in the spine of everyone particularly Wall Street.
The point am trying to make is that we all make choices and selfish choices most of the time, so why can’t we be selfish when choosing our friends who are one of the most important things in our lives? If we can be careful in choosing the brand of cigarettes we smoke or the shopping mall we shop at, then we should equally be picky about selecting our friends, maybe like the way my lovely mom selects vegetables and cloths in the market. Friends are our backbone, our secret weapons and our secret line of defense, they are usually the ones we let our guards down with and to whom we expose our weaknesses, even though I think we should never expose our weaknesses to nobody, perhaps that’s why my dad doesn’t have much "friends" except for family and a few associates.

Let’s look at a typical scenario of foolishness we usually make; you meet a guy or girl at a friend’s house or in any other social gathering, you start doing things together, you know, guy things like going to watch the game together, arguing about which soccer team is the best between Arsenal and Man U or Chelsea (when they all suck :p), or going to the club to pick a few girls for the night, or for the girls like gossip about the hot guy you saw at the mall, you know the usual things. You think you know this guy or girl so you foolishly start telling them some intimate and private things like how you bribe your dean to change your results, how you cheat on your gf or what you ATM pin number is (sounds really stupid isn’t it?). But what do you really know about this guy or girl that you should be telling them your secrets? Come to think of this, if not for our foolishness and weak heart, there won’t be spies and secret agents in the world even James Bond will be out of job.

Just because you had a couple of fun with some random dude or chick, you shared some jokes and laughs, he bought you some wraps of weed to get high or she offered to spend the night at your place…..so what?! What’s the big deal with that?! Does a little human bonding mean you should automatically open up, and give your trust away? Come on people!, I should hit you across the head now if you even have to think about it.

What is a friend? A lot of people have different definitions of what a friend is, but as far as I am concerned a friend is such like anything else, a commodity to be used when the need arises. Period! We have friends because when we need something, they are available to provide a service, whether it's to talk to us and motivate us when we feel down, to provide us with some advice or to simply accompany us to the soccer game so that we can have someone around to enjoy the game with. Friends are there because we are selfish, self-absorbed people, who don't like to do things ourselves, friends are there because “we need” them. It’s “we” not “they”, because nobody hangs around with a friend that they don’t benefit from.

Please don’t make me hate you by being hypocritical about the definition of a friend, because I have heard people saying that a friend is someone we care about, trust for, blah, blah, blah. You care for your friends because they know everything about you or because they represent an asset in your life. Without these two things, your caring level drops fast. In life, we don't make friends, we make contacts and contracts that’s why we hear politicians saying in politics there is no permanent friend or enemy, there is only temporary interest. People become friends because they represent a certain interest to one another not necessary temporarily as in the case of politic, it could be for a life time.The minute we realize whether consciously or unconsciously that a certain somebody is in one way or the other an asset in our lives that’s the very minute we decide to make them our friends, and the very moment their value depreciate so is the level of our friendship. Don’t be surprised if your friends ditch you when you don’t have any worth in their lives, it’s not their fault most people would do the same, you included. If you are still deceiving yourself that you are different, perhaps more “human” than I sound, ask yourself why you don’t have a lunatic or a known armed robber as a friend, except of course you are one yourself.

Now, I may be saying all these, but I'm also human myself, I’ve also made some terrible choices in life and have had some very bad friends, and despite everything I've said I cannot guarantee myself that I might not make some more mistakes in the choice of friends, I have come to realize that nobody can do anything alone. At a certain point in our lives, we all need friends both good and bad, I once told my friend that even a hooker can be your friend as long as you know how to use people. With that in mind, you have to realize that you must be very careful about choosing the select few (and privileged in my case :-) ), people that you can say are your good friends . You can have a million friends, but it takes a very few to be called close and good friends, to be on the safe side make your mom or dad your best friends.

A friend of mine recently got admitted into rehab. I can guarantee you that if he had listen to my advice and was half as smart as I am :-), he wouldn't be in rehab, but in my mind, he will always be a close friend. This is not because I really care much about him at the moment, but because when I was a stupid teenager, we did some things that let's just say my parents especially my mom would frown upon.

I definitely can't be there to tell you which morons don't deserve your friendship and which do, but I can tell you to be very careful before you let your guard down and trust another, because trust is a very powerful and dangerous thing.

==To all my friends out there, i love you all so much and really appreciate your existence in my life,i can't imagine how life would have been without some of you, don't get me wrong with this write up, am only expressing myself AGAIN==