Pilar Jerico

“Without friendship no one would want to live, even if they were to have all other possessions […]; for what is the point of prosperity if it is deprived of the ability to do good to one’s friends?”

Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

Friendship makes life easier, as Aristotle affirmed over two thousand years ago; and friendship does not just exist between friends, it can also exist between parents and children, and within couples (although its presence in couples was only contemplated centuries after the philosopher’s death). Friendship rescues us from loneliness, which can become especially pernicious at times of great pain, as Bradburn demonstrated in 1969. In the United States, 26% of people admit to feeling lonely and being depressed and unhappy. In my own country, Spain, the figure is similar: in a survey carried out in 1991, 20% of people owned up to feeling unhappy.

Friendship is not just necessary if we want to avoid feeling lonely; it also enables us to share with others, to live a fuller and more authentic life … and even to increase our life expectancy! This is the finding of a research project carried out at Flinders University in Australia. Over the course of ten years, researchers there analyzed the social relationships maintained by almost 1,500 people over the age of 70, and established a correlation with how long they lived. Their conclusions are very revealing: the people who had more and better relationships had 22% more chance of surviving. Friendship, it would seem, is the elixir of youth. Friendship also lowers the risk of suffering a heart attack, according to research published in the journal Heart in the U.K.: people who have already suffered one heart attack are twice as likely to suffer another one within the space of two years if they don’t have a good friend, a family member, or a partner to confide in.

We might ask why the art of cultivating friends is not a compulsory subject on all school curricula. Friendship is possibly one of the most important sources of strength to help us overcome problems and to improve ourselves as people. In myths and fables, all heroes can count on a friend; a guide may not cross their path, but a friend is always there. Friends are like a life raft at difficult times; they make you see that you are not alone and that you can share your pain. Sometimes you can experience this sense of comfort with people you least expect, or with someone who you only meet once in your life, but who is there for you just at the right time. Often it is unnecessary for the other person to say anything: the fact that they are there with you is enough to help heal your wounds. Such is the magic of friendship.

Angela Mendez and Montse Mateos recently wrote an excellent article about the impact of fear in the workplace. In this post, I’ll elaborate on their ideas to help people face up to fear.

1. Don’t deny your fear. Accept it as a normal emotion which is felt by everyone. We don’t usually speak about fear because it is considered a sign of weakness; however, never experiencing fear would be highly dangerous. Fear is part of the make-up of our brains, and is the emotion which has most helped us to get to where we are as a species. So, being alive means experiencing fear from time to time. Don’t try to avoid something which is a natural part of all mammals’ brains!

2. Cushion the impact of fear by looking at each situation calmly, and rationally. Define an action plan when faced with circumstances that induce fear in you. How many of our fears actually come to pass? I once read a study carried out in the USA which said that the figure is less than 5 per cent. Whatever the exact number may be, you only have to look back at your childhood and teenage fears to realize that they were greatly exaggerated. Fear is useful, but we have a tendency to be overly affected by it. A good technique which you can use is to imagine what you would do if your worst fears were fulfilled. A manager in a company once told me that at the beginning of his career, he was afraid that he would lose his job, and end up penniless and begging on the street. He took a brave decision to face up to this fear: he went to speak to some beggars and, although he learnt about the hard life which they led, he also saw that they were able to get used to it, and to find room for friendship and small pleasures in their lives. The experience gave him the strength to unmask his fear.

3. Realize that we all have the strength to face up to the fears which beset us. Don’t let fear paralyze you. Resilience is the name given to the strength which enables us to overcome difficult situations. I think that hardly anyone is fully aware of how resilient they can be. At the current time we are in the middle of an economic crisis. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that humanity has had to face up to far more difficult situations, such as war or epidemics. We need to see things in perspective, and trust in our innate capacity to face up to difficulties, and in our basic survival instincts.

4. Seek help. Speak to friends, family, colleagues, or specialists, and tell them about your problems. You don’t need to deal with your problems all on your own. If you’re going through a bad patch, tell others about it and don’t keep it to yourself. As Iñaki Gómez told me after confiding in a friend, your unshed tears stay trapped in your body. Or, to put it more prosaically, silence and isolation make us weak and more prone to fear. So, seek the support of friends and people you trust. Speak openly about what is troubling you and about how you feel, without blowing everything out of all proportion. There are some people who seem to positively enjoy painting a completely bleak picture of their situation. If you know someone like this, don’t be sucked in by their pessimism, but try to see the opportunities and alternatives available.

5. Look to the future, and set yourself motivating goals and challenges. In the end, the best way to get rid of fear is to look at the other side of the coin: your hopes, dreams and new plans. The past never comes back, but you can create your future if you fully embrace it. Learn to enjoy your new situation and to laugh about what has happened to you. Start making new plans, whether work-related or personal. All this won’t happen overnight but, little by little, by trusting in yourself and with the help of friends or people you admire, you can build a new future. In the words of Nelson Mandela: “The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear”.

Without the support of those around us, all of our best intentions to change can come to nothing. If we don’t have the backing of those closest to us, it’s all too easy to relapse into the old ways. You can probably think of examples of this both in your work and in your personal life. And I’ve just come across a striking example of this in a fantastic film I recently saw on DVD, The Wrestler, starring a Mickey Rourke back to his very best form, who has been nominated for an Oscar for his performance

The film tells the story of a professional wrestler who was a big star in the eighties and who’s still in the ring, even though he’s now well past his prime. One day he suffers a heart attack during a fight, and has no choice but to retire and come face to face with that most dreaded of human predicaments, loneliness. I especially liked the film because it brings into focus the difference between having real friends or just mere acquaintances, the huge chasm which separates someone who is just pleasant company and someone with whom you can have a deeper relationship. I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, but it’s a film which graphically shows the price we’re prepared to pay to avoid being alone; and how we need the support of others to be able to change, even though we don’t always realise this. If you want to change some aspect of you life (your job, your personality, your way of life…), can you count on the support of someone close to you? If you can’t, then I’m afraid the process of change is going to be all the more painful.

Finally, I especially liked one scene which shows how we cling on to fame and our need to be seen or feel important, even at the cost of our own dignity. I’ve seen this myself with people who’ve had their day in the sun and can’t stop reminding everybody about it. In the words of Kipling:

“If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same…”

Success is either an impostor or a fluke; and anyone who thinks the world of himself because of his success will sooner or later have his day of reckoning. That is why failure can often be a blessing in disguise, and why we need friends and their support to remember who we really are.