We’ve all heard the saying before, “I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for my friends,” and I believe that to be extremely true. The longtime friends I have at home and even the new friends I’ve come to know and love here at my first two months at Penn State, shape my every well-being every day I’m with them. I can’t imagine being alone or friendless, that has to mess with your psyche at least a little bit. So, how much of a role do friendships play on our sanity and in our daily lives?
Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D. states that, “one of the most important and yet least understood areas of psychology concerns the roles of friends in our lives.” There are many perks to having a close group and range of friends. Friends can teach us vital life skills that maybe we didn’t know before. I know for myself, being away at college was a whole new experience for me and learning how to clean stains properly was not my forte. Thankfully I had friends here who could teach me how to get that stain out of my rug and properly push the right buttons on the washing machine. This anecdote demonstrates how having friends by my side can also help me better adapt to new and challenging situations that I may have had trouble with tackling on my own.
Early childhood friendships are considered to be the most important. These are the friendships are the ones you formed while “key developmental changes” were taking place. I’ve concluded that even though you could have only been 5 years old or so, the people you surrounded yourself with during this time was a direct correlation to the way you would turn out as you grew older. Children remember things very well at a young age, and they also begin to get a feel for a pattern and normality. So, being friends with children that were disrespectful in any way and were rude and intolerable can also have an effect on you. You want to be that person’s friend so you’re going to do what you can to get them to like you and fit in with the way they think, causing you to in return, act out just as badly as they do. Children should be aware of the kind of people they’re hanging around and make smart decisions based on a healthy conscience.
Whitborne goes on to explain that having friends teaches you the value of difference and tolerance. Sure, you’re going to have friends that are exactly like you. You both like the same sports, food, and TV shows, and you bond over doing that with one another, but sometimes it’s good to break out of that boundary and become friendly with people who maybe aren’t very similar to you. I don’t mean complete polar opposites, where you begin to disagree often with one another that it induces fights or bad banter, but just another person who you can get to know and value their difference in certain opinions and beliefs. This touches us to know that not everyone thinks the same way we do and not everything that we say goes. We are not the only people on this planet and sometimes it’s god to be reminded of that.
Life comes with it’s up’s and down’s and it’s daily struggles and in these circumstances it’s good to have friends by your side. Dealing with heavy situations in isolation will not be healthy on a person’s emotions and mind. Having a person you trust there with you every step of the way to give comfort and advice is what helps to make these tough times just a little better. Going through heartache and pain alone can be detrimental to a person’s well-being. They may think no one out there likes them and this causes them to start getting critical about themselves, knit-picking all the flaws that they see in themselves.
It’s just evident that the right group of friends can spread happiness. In a Harvard Medical School Study, “of 5,000 people over 20 years found that one person’s happiness spreads through their social group even up to three degrees of separation, and that the effect lasts as long as a year.” Also having a friend who is happy improves your likelihood of being happy by a whole 15%!
The idea that having friends is a direct correlation to having a happy and healthy life has never been a more perfect statement.
Just by looking at this picture, who wouldn’t want friends!?
This blog is great in explaining the importance of friends! Why are friends important? Because they make us happy. With their surrounding, I do not feel lonely anymore. I can also learn from friends who have different interests from me and share ideas with friends who share the same interest. I wonder if there are more studies about the “magic” of friendship, because those studies will be so fun to look at.
Friends are so important! I personally don’t believe that there needs to be scientific research or experiments done to prove this. Friends shape who you are as an individual, for the good or for the better. I feel as though not having friendships can cause damage to ones health. Its the mental health that I believe can be damaged. I enjoyed this specific section of your blog, “Early childhood friendships are considered to be the most important. These are the friendships are the ones you formed while “key developmental changes” were taking place.” I believe the friendships you first form when you are an adolescent are key to your development throughout your life. Half of my best friends are kids I went to grade school with. I see these individuals as family and I am truly glad that I have them in my life.
I totally agree with that fact that friends improve your happiness. At the beginning of school, i didnt know many people or have any close friends. I felt like i was in a slump. When i started to make friends and form closer friendships, i started to feel better and saw a definite improvement in my happiness.
I really enjoyed this blog. My friends are everything to me. I tell them everything and they are the first people I turn to when I have a problem or need advice. When they are sad, I am sad. When they are happy, I am happy. I agree with the study that said that talked about 5,000 and over 20 years it was found that one person’s happiness spread through their social group. This tends to happens in most cases for me and my friends, however there are those times where that is not the case. Sometimes I am in a bad mood because I did bad on a test and all of my friends are happy because they did good at that test. In cases like that, their happiness does not spread to me. Here is a buzzed link about best friends. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mrloganrhoades/32-signs-youve-found-your-best-friend-for-life#.ci7bGwmD96