About a year ago a friend asked me if I considered him loyal. He and I were not close friends. I knew him through my boyfriend at the time and had started giving him rides to work after he crashed his scooter on the way home one night. This guy was very intelligent and extremely cocky. He also lacked an understanding of social boundaries. That doesn't really play much into whether or not I thought he was loyal, but his cockiness made me dislike him quite a bit. Because of that, I wasn't able to give him an answer (he then proceeded to list the people he thought were loyal and why he thought he was loyal).
I explained to him that I didn't know him well enough to be able to give him an answer at the time. The conversation opened up a chain of thoughts that I meditated on for the next day or so, the main focus of which was "What is loyalty to me?"
A year before that conversation I had escaped a bad situation that I had been stuck in for several years. During and after my escape I lost, solidified, and found friendships. I was forced to look at the qualities of the friends that I had, and during the time the subject of loyalty had come up in my mind more than once. There were some friends that I was completely loyal to, but I wasn't sure that I was receiving the same in return. This was especially true in my last two weeks there, when a friend went behind my back and decided not to travel with me, which meant I had to come up with the extra money she promised me in gas on very short notice. It opened my eyes to how important I was to her and how misplaced my loyalty and my love was.
The definition of loyalty is "faithfulness to commitments or obligations." When it comes to being loyal to a friend it's hardly an obligation. It's a choice. It is the word "faithfulness" that stands out in that definition. Faithfulness means "steady in allegiance or affection; loyal; constant." This is the most important quality of loyalty in terms of friendship. It means loving and supporting a friend as much as you can.
I believe that it's important to look for good, close friends that are going to be loyal to you. Of course, not every friend is going to be loyal. Everyone is closer to some friends than others. I don't expect my work friends to be loyal, but I do expect my closest friends to be. It's also important to be loyal to the friends that you expect loyalty from. Treat others the way that you would want to be treated.
I view loyalty and friendship a bit like a knight swearing fealty to a lord or king. Suppose that you are a knight in a realm where several different lords are vying to become the next king. You must choose one lord to remain loyal to. Several different lords approach you, offering a variety of perks for your services. Would you choose the first pretty offer that came along without looking at the character of the lord? I would hope not. A lord could offer you all of the riches in the world, but he could treat his knights poorly, taking advantage of them and working them too hard. Is that the lord that you would swear fealty to? Instead, look at the way the lord treats his men. Is he respectful? Does he fulfill his duties to his men? Is he loyal to their agreements? If the answer to those question is yes, then perhaps he is worth giving your loyalty to.
Of course, loyalty and friendship don't have to be permanent and there's no swearing involved. You're free to give and take your loyalty as you please, at the risk of losing the trust of people you care about. The point is, don't give your loyalty to anyone who comes into your life. Save it for the people who treat you right; the people who deserve it.
The friend who asked me if I thought he was loyal ended up taking advantage of the fact that I had a car. He tricked me out of gas money by giving me food (working at FedEx makes you very, very hungry). Because he was so full of himself, I wasn't sure how to approach him about that. Finally, I got frustrated and refused to wait in the parking lot for him one night. The friendship collapsed, ending when he lashed out and claimed that I was a bad friend who wasn't very loyal. My response? Loyalty is a thing earned, and he had never earned it from me. Too many times he had agreed to give me gas money and then failed to do so. Too many times he had overstepped social boundaries and made me angry. I had no reason to be loyal to him, and I didn't see him as a loyal person either.
That friend of mine is an example of why you should not swear fealty to the first lord who comes along with a tempting offer.
No comments:
Post a Comment