HRP LETTER SERIES: LETTER TO MY FRIEND ABOUT THE JOKES YOU MAKE
Dear friend,
It gives me great joy to write to you today. I hope your week has been good so far. I write to tell you about the deepest feelings I have concerning the words you use. I also speak on behalf of your many or few friends.
Words are very weighty and without doubt as light as a feather, it can pull down or build. Often, our friends are the easiest receipients of the words we use even when we joke around and sadly this happens in the most embarrassing situations. The friend in turn has to form a tough skin to evade the feeling of embarrassment. Depression wears a smile so we often don’t know when our friend is slipping away from us.
When the real feelings are spoken, they are most often laughed at or looked on in a weird way. Not a lot of people know how to say, “I was offended by the words you used on me, or I didn’t like your reaction when I slipped and fell in the hallway, or I didn’t like your reaction when I threw up in public”.
It’s almost impossible not to laugh at mistakes together but a friend once said, “I’ll laugh at and with you when you fall but I’ll pick you up”. The clause is important that you don’t walk away and laugh with others against your friend.
Don’t make a joke of your friend because you wouldn’t want to be in the same shoes. It’s sad to laugh with others against your friend. The cover up code should be the friendship code.
Friend, without cognisance to the words you use my letter to you would be incomplete. It’s not wrong to play around once in a while but we must be sensitive to knowing when we should and shouldn’t use some particular phrases. Some jokes turn out as rebuke and not an encouraging push to do better. As friends we know the soft spots of our friends and many of them trust us not to use this to make fun of them. It could also tear apart the trust.
You don’t know what some people have been through in life. Don’t be part of their worst experiences, learn your friend’s apology language if you have made this mistake before.
For instance, Tony your close friend is having a bad day partly because his pants are torn underneath and his boss tore down hell on him. Tony relies on you by telling you about his bad day. You joke about this casually to your girlfriend. She chuckles when Tony walks in through the door of the restaurant you’re both sitting in. Tony feels awkward, he partly wants to respect the friendship or walk out the door into the driveway. And then you say, “Come on Tony, it’s nothing!”, revealing that you had been talking about him. Friend put yourself in Tony’s shoes for a second. Either of the apology languages might work well in settling this little but sometimes demeaning conflict, if you don’t know your friend’s apology language, it’s advisable you use all. Check out the five apology languages https://bit.ly/2kgvZQV
Till we meet again friend, the vulnerability you see in a friend is a privilege and a measure of trust shown. Let’s learn to encourage one another. Do drop a comment, it would mean a lot and subscribe to get our daily posts.
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Yours truly,
HIS RULE PUBLICATION.