Friendship Important to a Happy Life - Essay Example

? Is Friendship Unambiguously Important to a Happy Life? Introduction Friendship is possibly the utmost value of life, where virtue and contentment are cohesive. Friendship is a commendable outlet for the aptitudes and energies of big-hearted persons. It satisfies and goes past justice. The kindness shown in dignified friendships appears to be higher than fairness, as it is completely reliant upon one's own personality and preference and is not distinct or obliged by law. Actions of friendship are both more generous and more favorable to one's own contentment than actions done just because they are ethical. Doing something for the sake of what is ethical symbolizes having chief concern for one's personal virtue and the kindness of one's personal soul, while doing something for a friend appears to be unselfish. Impulsive actions of companionship tend to be more satisfying than unfriendly actions of virtue for the performer as well as for the receiver. These are just some of the qualities and feelings that define friendship. In the following section this study delves more into the discussion with the aim of discerning whether friendship is a prerequisite to a happy life. Discussion-Body Friendship, is at times comparable to a domicile, to a place where an individual is contented and is able to be his/her real self, a place where one can get rid of the different pretenses she does during her day. People need not to act haughtily for their good associates (Street 102). They should feel certain that friends recognize and love them for who they are. There is a fine level of interpersonal liberty found in companionship, which lets for better creative terms of self, better both qualitatively and quantitatively. Friendship is rich with the kind of inventive activity that is generally associated with skill appreciation and skill making (McCall 26). In comparison with the majority of other communal relations, friends are free in the companionship of one another (Baumeister 68). There exists no communal writing for friends to pursue (Kalimtzis 28). Friendship is difficult to characterize pictorially since there are no essential or characteristic activities linked with it, different from the relations people encourage with lovers, parents, as well as co-workers. Friends could be doing everything together, commencing from combating with each other to espousal in a loving embrace (Lee 96). This makes it hard to study friendship of any solitary moment. People cannot say whether two persons are friends by merely staring at them on a certain event any more than they could do so in picture, since there is no apparent path that directs from a detached interaction between two persons to their amity. Even by a friend saying he would die for another does not essentially show that the person is a friend. There is a degree of freedom in amity that is not ordinary in other communal interactions, even in other close relations (Braungier 1993.p.212). This liberty, demands to the extent that it pays for. People are supposed to be honest, sincere, and true with their friends. Moments of receptiveness as well as times of expressivity ratifies such freedom. Friendship demands frank inquisitiveness and an approach of frankness, lest people’s encounters with pals be like the practical exchanges or egotistic co-existence. One type of meaning of a good individual, or an ethical person, is that that individual does not inflict his or her fancy on another. That means he is enthusiastic to recognize the actuality of other persons (Baumeister 78). Admittedly, the capability to listen is not a satisfactory situation for being a good person, but it appears to be an essential one. Once friends listen to each other, they perform out of amity and are being moral persons. The honesty required in companionship is comparable to that needed in skill appreciation. To enter into that alien world, one requires that they be able to see beyond one’s personal agenda as well as manias. The artistic approach is one that is unbiased and compassionate. When welcoming something or somebody aesthetically, an individual ought to be thoughtful of, but rather reserved from her personal interests or prospect yet, at the same time, one ought to be intensely caring to the point of appreciation (Caluori 110). When people really appreciate something or somebody’s artistic features, they do so, on its own, not on theirs. One who is concerned for his/her friend and desires to appreciate her is a part of her world. She strives to abstain from foretelling her own plan and prospect on her friend. A good friend, all matters being equal, could set one’s plan aside, enabling a friend’s wants or desires to pursue her own (Dawley 26). The equilibrium of this other-concerning deed fluctuates in companionship as the lives that encircle a friendship changes as well (Badhwar 88). If a person aims unambiguously at an ending, such as accruing friendships, an individual thereby restrains the open expression and liberty to survey found in the building and sustaining of friendships. An acquaintance is less concerned with the objective of making or sustaining amity than on the manner in which the companionship itself endorses and inspires (Lemer 56). Once one does something out of friendship, amity is not a goal, but somewhat it plays both compassion and a sine qua non role (Caluori 136). Referring to McCall (2011), companionship is prejudiced, not neutrally a habit, not a tactic; and a talent, not a science (McEvoy 212). In other words, the subjects concerned with them while in the course of building friendships and their personal codes. Liberty plays an answer role in companionship and Laurence Thomas gives a way to comprehend the liberty in friendship that assists clarify some of the artistic activity intrinsic in friendship (Caluori 136). Thomas places communal relations on a field from those that people make maximally to those that people structure simply, where optimally structured communal relations are highly directed by communal roles, regulations, and caucus, and in simply structured communal interactions factors like rules, roles, as well as caucus are less relevant (Caluori 142). Thomas upholds that the majorities of communal relationships are to a high degree, structure with the distinguished exceptions of amity and love (Caluori 136). Friendships as well as idealistic loves are typically and paradigmatically simply planned interpersonal relations (Lee 92). People put issues of propriety and protocol often aside (Emerson 87). One would not discern quite what to say of two such persons who, for example, persevered upon tackling each other officially or holding one another to the least detail of protocol once they are single-handedly together, hoard that this was a valuable form of laughter between the two persons (Spencer 104). Profound friendships as well as idealistic love are the merely two ways of interpersonal relations in which the two persons interrelate immeasurably and regularly (Conard 128). A great deal of information discussed seeks to delve into the thoughts and intricacies of friendship largely borrowed from modern theorists of friendship. However, in as much as these help us in understanding friendship they do not provide us with the most fundamental link of friendship and happiness (McEvoy 126). This is best described by classical philosophers, particularly Aristotle who extensively wrote on friendship and happiness. Aristotle extensively discusses “civic friendship”, however, this study focuses on the private dimension of friendship in which he emphasizes intimacy of relations, trust and reciprocity, and which indicates the value he places on the particularity of the relationship between friends (Cavalier 84). He looks at friendship as kind of partnership in which good men “become better men by exercising their friendship and improving each other” a man’s consciousness of the desirability of his own existence and of the existence of his friend becomes actualized in their life together, so self-worth and self-knowledge are enhanced through friendship (Lynch 84). Friends or what he refers to as philoi are integral to living a full and happy life, and the deep affinity between them allows them to act as what we might call ‘mirrors’ to one another (Lynch 96). Following Aristotle’s arguments, most of which I concur with and which represent a strong congruence with my personal thoughts, it is clear that he feels compelled to discuss friendship as anyone who is to be happy must have excellent friends (Wittkower 44). Friends alone do not guarantee a happy life this explains why Aristotle insists on “excellent” friends. The best of friendship must be held together by virtue, and it is virtue-more than money, power, or fame that most assuredly bestows happiness (Fitzgerald 112). Cultivating a virtuous character is no easy task, as it takes many years to acquire and a lifetime to uphold. On basis of friendship, happiness also surfaces in companionship. If I’m not sure of what to do in a particular situation, I can ask my friend for advice. If a friend of mine finds her/himself in a jam, she can call on me without hesitation (Osterberg 36). In fact, true friends generally need not call on me without hesitation. In fact, true (excellent) friends generally need not call upon each other at all, as the friend in need finds his friend always already there. Friends help us navigate through life and cherish the opportunity to do so as they become better people along the way (Kent 108). A friend, according to Aristotle is another self, and who could not use another self when times are tough, when your spirits are down, or when you need someone to pick you up every time your spirit wane. Whatever the situation, our friends stand by us as we stand by them, extending each other a helping hand and leaving each other with a smiling face. Friendship ensures happiness due to its intrinsic goodness augmented by its goodness as a means, as a bulwark against evil, a source of inspiration and assistance in reaching the good, a confirmation of one’s worth, an object of confused efforts at self-overcoming, and, not least, a distraction from sorrows and disappointments and death (Pangle 22). Friendship is fundamentally good because it magnifies life, expanding our concerns and intensifying our joys. Friendship makes even better “whatever it is that people love most in life” (Pangle 78). What matters most for happiness, then, is not the companionship that friendship brings but the pleasures and good activities that it augments, and even its goodness as an enhancer of life would not be so very good if it were not for the inevitability of death. In a world in which piety has receded and the cultivation of virtue seems like an old fashioned pursuit, what seems to matter most in life is the depth and quality of our connection with the people we love (Emerson 88). However preoccupied people are with accumulating money and prestige and power, it is spending time with loved ones that always appears most important when the prospect of death forces them discussed within this study it is then agreeable that friendship is one of the most important ingredients in the happy life, and that the affection and especially the companionship that constitute the intrinsic goodness of friendship are solid goods indeed (Pangle 74). Conclusion In conclusion, every living being feels disposed to start on and retain relationships. For most of us, this is a social process that is not given much thought. However, it is one that largely determines how we walk through life, either as happy beings or solemn beings. Happiness exists because we have “excellent” people in our lives who look out for our feelings and who always offer a helping hand in hours of need. 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