My Blog

One of the joys in life is meeting your friends over a cup of coffee, catching up on lost time, sharing funny stories and making the scene crackles with infectious humour.

Last week, my high school friends and I met at Green Lotus for dinner and we had a really good time despite the awful and expensive food. It was a shame that some of the gang couldn’t show up or we could’ve simply torn down the restaurant with our laughter.

You are beginning to lose your friends when you become associated with a place, a job or a person. It’s funny how ironic things always are. When I was very young, I hated bumping into friends…downtown, on the street, in the mart or almost everywhere else outside school. I would quickly duck down a nearby alley or disappear into the crowd so that I would not be seen. If you ask me now, I didn’t know why I did that myself either.

As I’m getting older, things turn out to be the exact opposite. As I’m walking on the street downtown, I’ll always hope for a chance to encounter with a friend. I suppose I could have seen more friends on a daily basis if I had stayed in my attitude nowadays, and that’s too bad.

I always wonder how many friends a man can make in his lifetime. I guess no one counts on that and it doesn’t really matter. I’m convinced that it’s good for your health to make new friends. It’s like exercise. Do it a lot, and you’ll live longer. Having a lot of friends is like having a lot of money. They will be very helpful at the moment you need it the most. A friend once said, "If you have a plumber friend, don’t worry about clogging at home."

I take comfort in what Elbert Hubbard once said. "The Friend," he reminded us, "is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you."

Having a friend is important — and comforting.