What is The Importance of Friends and Family?

The human being, as we all know, is a social specie and the importance of friends and family can not be over ruled. No human being can live successfully and thrive in any environment without engaging or being part of social relationships. These social relationships come in different degrees.

Bottom line is that all human beings must be involved in one social relationship or the other in order to thrive on earth. This is where the family comes in. The family is like the most basic and yet the most powerful relationship on earth. Usually a family would consist of people that are related by blood – blood relations. But we find out these days that your family does not necessarily need to have a blood tie with you.

Friendship is another social relationship whose advantages cannot be overemphasized. A friend is also another person who is not necessarily a family member, but you share certain affectionate feelings.

Now, friends and family, why do we need them?

What is The Importance of Friends and Family? 5 Points

1. Companionship

It is important to always have someone in your corner. Someone you can call on when you need someone to talk to and tell your problems. Someone you can lean on and trust to always be by your side. This is who your family is to you. This is who a good friend is to you. Usually, with family, love is usually undeserved and unexplainable. As a result of the blood ties and fond memories that may have been established over the years, even when issues that would have caused some rift among them have ensued, you can still count on family to show up when you need them.

2. Support

It is important to know that wherever you go or wherever you may be, there are people that actually love and care about you. People genuinely concerned for your wellbeing. It is important to have people cheering you on in your time of struggles. The world can be a cold, hard place sometimes, like a roaring animal ever ready to devour at the slightest opportunity. It is important to have somewhere to run back to when the going gets tough.

Not knowing where to go or who to call when you are in a tight situation would feel worse than the situation itself, no matter how bad it is. Everybody needs a support system, a support network so to speak. As a functioning member of society, you must ensure that you build and maintain a network of people you can trust and fall back on in times of difficulty. Your family fits perfectly in this situation. Although there are exceptions when a person does not come from a good family.

Apart from having your family in your support network, we also have good friends. We must place emphasis on ‘good’ since not all friends have a positive impact on our lives. We must realize this and learn to discern the wholesome from the unwholesome. In doing this, we realize the ones who must be in our support network. Who we can call on whenever we need help.

3. Belonging

Every human being wants to ‘belong’. Everyone wants to have that feeling of belonging to a particular group or a cause or whatever. That sense of belonging, knowing that you are a part and parcel of something or someone or some people, is a very important feeling and no one can deny it. Sometimes, in sad cases where a person has no family and no friends, there’s usually a weight of sadness that comes upon such a person at intervals when they realize that they do not belong anywhere, when they realize that they are not a part of anything. Feeling that you are alone in this world can be the worst feeling a human being can experience.

It can even be argued that there is no grief that surpasses it. Even with those who are in unfortunately toxic family relationships, there are still ways, places and people where they can ‘belong’ to and feel completely loved and appreciated. Usually, these places you can belong to are your friendships and your familial ties. This is why these relationships are very important and everyone needs a healthy dose of them in their lives.

4. Soul Food

Good relationships feed your soul. You did not know? According to the English Dictionary, the soul is ‘the spirit or essence of a person; usually thought to consist of one’s thoughts and personality.’

Do you agree? There are three different aspects to human life, none of which can be substituted for the other. We have the mind, the soul and the body. Now, every of these aspects have to be fed to be sustained and to also thrive. We feed our body with enough food to ensure that it is sustained and it thrives. We also feed our minds with books, with experiences and different levels of exposure to ensure that the mind also grows, expands and thrives.

If every aspect of our human psyche has to be fed, one way or the other, what do we feed our soul with? Your relationships feed your soul; how your emotions are handled. Those good feelings you have when you’re just hanging out with a friend. Those memories you have when you’re at the beach with your family, playing with the sand and dancing in the ocean. These actions might seem normal and not necessarily life changing but these actions, these feelings, these memories are your soul’s diet and for your soul to thrive, you need a healthy dose of these experiences.

A healthy soul will reflect in your physical life. It will affect the way you view things, how you respond and react in certain situations, how you handle conflicts and how you handle your other social relationships. So nourishing your soul is as important as your breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is as important as reading all the books in the library. So now, don’t you think you need to have a soul diet too?

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5. Unconditional Love

Nobody is perfect. We all have times when we are such terrible humans, hurting those around us and refusing to change for the better. Even when our character becomes too heavy to bear by the people that come in contact with us daily, there’s always a dear group of people who would have us however we are, regardless of our flaws and inconsistencies. This dear group of people consists of our family and our good friends. And what they have for us is unconditional love.

Even when we refuse to be the best people we can be due to some circumstances or character flaws, it is refreshing to know that regardless of that, you’re still loved and cherished and that, somewhere there are people who are waiting for you to snap out of whatever phase you’re in and become that amazing person they know you can be. Unconditional love is usually undeserved and unexplainable. Not everybody can love you like that, without condition and without good explanations for why they love you the way they do. Why they would rather have you in any package you come in than not have you at all. That’s your circle! Cherish them.