On Friendship

Another week is at an end. I have learnt more German this week, and things are generally going ok. I am even scared of saying that things are going fine, thinking that saying it might somehow jinx things….. Talking about feeling good and happiness brings something else to my mind. I had a strange feeling yesterday morning. I woke up feeling happy, feeling good with myself. Now, I don’t mean to say that I am never happy, but waking up in the morning and feeling really happy is just not my thing. I had to run through my brain to see why I was feeling that good with myself.

The previous day, Thursday, I talked to some of my old friends who are in Nigeria over the phone. I realised how much I missed them, but at the same time I realised how great it is to have friends who are willing to help when one is down. I was typesetting a book and getting it ready for publication, the deadline was the following day (yesterday) and I couldn’t get it together. I was feeling really down, and since I had a call card with me I decided to call some friends. It was great to find out how they were doing, and to hear that despite the social and political problems in Nigeria things could still be fun. The last person I talked to was Pinky. I don’t know if you guys know the cartoon Pinky and the Brain, but I call him Pinky, or whenever it seemed like he was more like Brain I called him Brain. Ok, I called Pinky and Pinky offered to help with the Typesetting. I emailed the stuff to him, and he even called me at home later in the night to tell me that he had got it and he would work on it. Isn’t it just great to have people who would feel happy to do these kinds of things for one?

The little things of life are the things that make us happy. For instance, knowing that when I need to understand something better I have someone to ask, and whenever I have a problem with something there is someone who would be able to help with it, and gladly, makes me feel happy. But then, are these really small things? Are they not the stuffs of great things? Do we have to wait, for instance, until we make our first millions before we feel happy, or until we achieve whatever is our dream? I think that all these are great but the thought that we might actually be able to achieve them, that we might get someone who might assist us to achieve them, is often greater than the achievements themselves. Don’t we all know about the disappointment of finding out that the achievements don’t bring as much pleasure as we thought they would?

Phew! Ha ha… I have finally become what I always was afraid of becoming: a stupid motivational bore! Back to reading on Rational Choice Theory!!