Be open to advise, be open to accept

~Bismillah~

Not everything we do, we can please people.

Not everything we do, can be considered as the right thing to do.

Sometimes we cannot even see our actions. That's why we need some reflections and our reflections are our friends. Our close friends. Good friends sometimes can be our mirrors. They somehow can be our reflections. 

From them, we tend to see our flaws. 

From them, we are able to see our shortcomings. 

Good friends are when you do mistakes, they will correct you.

Good friends are when you do something wrong, they will immediately stop you and say, 

"No! This is wrong! You're not supposed to do this!"

Good friends are when you commit a certain sinful act, they will never leave you with it, instead they will take your hand quickly and pull you back up instantly so that you won't fall into the trap of syaitan.

Good friends are those who never ever forget to remind you about Allah, Islam and the Hereafter.

Good friends are meant to be people who are never bored and give up to give you their advice about this life and the 'treasures' in it.

Good friends can be those whom when you look at their face, you will feel nothing but peace and calmness and it will straight away bring you towards the remembrance of Allah in your heart. 

That's what good friends mean!

But seriously, nowadays, who would want to view the meaning of true friendship as this? 

None!

To most people today, good friends are those who always agree with you although what you say or do actually go against the shariah. Or maybe... to some people, they view true friends as those who always follow you wherever you go and accept everything you do even you are actually committing sins! Naudhubillah min dhalik. 

We don't want such friends to occupy our lifetime, do we? Nor we want to be such friend to our friends.

So, the solution is simple. It's even simpler than what we thought.

In order to have a good friend and in order to be one, all we need to do is just to,

"Be open to advise and be open to accept."

What do I mean by this?

I'm saying this because this is what I've been experienced in my life.

I have some friends who tend to do a lot of mistakes in their lives. Meaning to say, they somehow commit certain mistakes that we never or maybe rarely do in our lives. So, to face them, and due to my love to them and to our friendship, I'll be open to advise them. All my knowledge about things they are dealing with will be taken out from my memory box, to be shared with them. That's how I prove myself that I'm a worth person to be friend with. One way to show your true love to your friend is that by challenging yourself of how many of their mistakes that you can correct and how brave you are to correct them. Let me add up one more thing! How strong you are to pull their hand from falling into syaitan's trap.

I also have some friends who always remind me about good things and at the same time, who'd love to correct my mistakes. And in this case, I'll be the one who will be open to accept. I accept all sorts of advice and even criticisms about my wrongdoings. I have a friend who love to advise me about things regarding love and feeling and I also have a friend who love to criticise me on many things. But I never complain about them. If it's not because of their advice and criticisms, I will never get to improve myself to become a better person and most probably, I'll never get the chance to be myself! Truth to be told, their presence somehow has given a huge impact in my life and I feel that my existence is actually being noticed by other people for all this while! They never ignore me. They never let me drown with all the sins that I'm committing and most importantly, they never leave me facing all the problems I have in my life all by myself.

And this is what true friendship is all about!

True friendship is not about materials but it's rather about love and trust!

If we truly love our friends, we never hesitate to bring them closer to God.

If we truly believe in our friends, we never doubt to support them whenever they say, "I wanna change for good."  

To have and to maintain a true friendship, we should always "be open to advise and be open to accept."

Wallahua'lam.