A long time ago I read an interesting few pages from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics detailing three different type friendships: 1) utility, 2) pleasure, and 3) complete friendships. I was drawn to these ideas, and, over the years, took special note about anything I read that discussed friendship. It’s a topic that fascinated me ever since.
The three aligned with another reading of mine that spoke of things that are good, better, and best in life. It suggests that there are many things in life that are good, but we often stop short of better or best because we think whatever it is we’re engaged with is “good”, and that’s good enough, and we either shun or don’t realize that there are better or best things out there for us.
As these two ideas aligned in my mind over the years, I was drawn to the best kind of friendships – complete friendships. As Aristotle defined them, “complete friendship is the friendship of good people similar in virtue; for…they wish goods to each other for each other’s own sake.” I wrote about this idea years ago as it applies to politics, but now I write as it applies to friendship. True friendship means doing things for the other because it is good for the other (not to get some personal advantage out of it).
I loved this idea. There’s something to the purity of it. What I found over the years (and still now), however, is that there were very few people in my life who would let me do good things for them, with no strings attached. “Can I carry that for you?” “Is there anything I can do for you?” “Let me do that for you.” “Can I get you something while I’m at McDonalds?” The vast majority of times I offer assistance to either a friend or a stranger, they politely decline, probably for a variety of reasons.
But there are few – a few special souls out there – who allow me to serve them; to do things for them. These are often things they can do for themselves just fine, but they let me pitch in, anyway. These are those who become special to me, and I have a theory about this.
I believe that when we serve another person, a directional bond is formed between us and the person we serve. If I help “Steve” with some yard work, I find I feel a small bond with Steve. If I am allowed to continue helping Steve with things over a period of time (big things or small things), that bond I feel with him grows. But, as I said, it’s a directional bond – a one-way bond. For example, if Steve allows me to assist him, but I never let Steve assist me (or, he never offers to help me out), he isn’t bonded to me. These are one-sided friendships that usually fail.
It’s only when we serve each other in whatever way we can, that we are able to form a “complete friendship”. In this, I am not suggesting that it’s an apples-to-apples service (e.g. I rake his leaves, he rakes my leaves). We simply do for each other what we can, when we can (e.g. I rake his leaves, he helps me with a plumbing project).
Can you think of any relationship in your life where you are eager to serve them, and that person not only allows you to serve them (with trivial and important things), but they are equally eager to serve you…and you let them?
Hopefully, that relationship exists between you and your significant other. I’m blessed to say that happens with my excellent and beloved wife and I. But, I am abundantly blessed to have just a few others in my life who I have this type of relationship with. Complete friends.
There’s nothing more valuable to me than my relationship with these people. Nothing.
I have “friends” of the other sort, some of them are good and some of them are better.
But a few are best.
