How Many Friends?

Friendship is such a marvellous thing. A few days ago I listed the qualities of what I considered a friend to be like and many of you agreed with my definition. One or two suggested little tweaks to the list and that is fine because we all see friendship slightly different.

But let us now take that one little stage further on. How many friends do we need? I suppose if we were talking FB then the number on our, " friends," list would be with no barriers.

But there is a little story that is worthy of some thought. 

A student came to a teacher and asked him, “Master, how many friends a person should have – one or a lot?”

“Everything is very simple,” the teacher answered, “pick me that red apple from the highest branch.”

The student looked up and answered, “But it’s too high, Teacher! I can’t reach it.”

“Ask a friend, maybe he will help you,” Master answered.

The student called another student and stood on his shoulders.

“I still can’t reach it, Teacher,” said the disappointed student.
“Don’t you have more friends?” the teacher smiled.

The student asked more friends who started standing up on each other’s shoulders and backs grunting, trying to build a live pyramid. But the apple was too high, the pyramid crumbled and the student wasn’t able to pick the longed for  apple.

Then the teacher called him back.

“So, did you understand how many friends a person needs?”

“I did, Teacher,” the student said, rubbing the injured sides, “A lot,  so together we could solve any problem.”

“Yes,” the Master answered, shaking his head in disappointment, “of course you need a lot of friends. 

So that among all of these athletes there would be at least one smart person who would figure out to get a ladder!”

Have a marvellous day.