“A strong feeling of support or allegiance.”
Loyalty is a good thing. We all wish for those people who would have our backs regardless of the circumstances we go through. These people would in some form double up as an accountability partner in the sense that they need to know details about your life to stand by your decisions and choices. In other terms they need to know what they are standing by all the way. Do you have such a person in your life?
Over the past couple of months especially with COVID-19, most social relations were disrupted and people lost touch. On this account, it was uncommon to realize you hadn’t talked to your best friend or BFF as you term them for a while. It’s part of living and you needn’t beat yourself over it as much. However, if they double up as your accountability partner and you need to stay loyal to or you expect them to stay loyal to you they better know what’s going on in your life, your thought process to be able to comprehend the basis of some of your decisions. Most importantly, they need to be able to call you out on some of your most unreasonable choices and decisions. We are not immune to terrible decisions, what matters is what we make of them.
The reason as to why I am doing this piece is because over time I’ve heard people complain about people who failed, “weren’t loyal to,” them and it’s painful when you did expect them to be. I want to confirm that I feel you pain and sense of betrayal as you’d call it but it goes beyond that. Some of these claims are fueled by our self-centeredness and self-serving relations with others. To add to this, most of them are anchored on a belief that our friends should be able to defend our stupidity with no questions asked. I think and feel that’s one of the terrible fails of our time. It’s like expecting people to stamp stupidity and live with it because of you. I’d rather they fail to defend it but get your reasoning while making the decisions then use that to enlighten you. That’s more valuable to you.
I believe our friendships and relationships are supposed to make us better people. To do this, they need to be authentic and genuine for our wellbeing and an individuals wellbeing doesn’t mean accepting anything and everything they say or do because of fear of disagreeing with them. It goes beyond that because we all have our flaws and that means we may not be right all the time. That’s where our relations come in to guide our steps. If you are my friend and somebody I expect to be loyal to me, then I must be willing to deal with your criticism when I mess around. It’s in that that I can course-correct, rethink my decisions and be a better person. Additionally, I should be able to bounce some of the crazy ideas and options I had before taking the most terrible of them for with that I understand your basis for thinking that wasn’t one of the best of choices to make. That’s a growth mindset anchored on a sense of responsibility.
It’s commonplace to hear people use the phrase of not being ready to have a flock of sheep for friends because they will always follow and agree with everything you say. The worst part is when you intentionally do something stupid in their midst to check and they pass the test by rubberstamping the same. Let’s be better people. Allegiance and support is based on principles and ideals not a fallacy and hope in baseless relation.
“We need to be able to tell each other the hard truths, the tough choices they need to make and most importantly stay loyal to an ideal not an illusion.”