The Most Difficult Thing to Do In Life

I was having a conversation with an Uncle this morning. The day before, he was training me in the art of dismantling opponents from what he had learned over 20 years of training in a free-style brawling Kung Fu gym.

He had a friend with an interesting situation in life. The doctors said that in 2 years, due to a disease, he would go blind, and the friend had seemingly run out of resources and opportunities, as he had trusted and given everything he had to his separated wife and baby girl, whom supposedly squandered the money he worked for in his government job, who had just recently stopped his pension.

With another close family member of mine, he proceeded to escalate and share in a misguided attempt at finding a solution for his friend, and after blasting his friend with various amounts of “loving thoughts” such as “he has no more hope”, “whatever shall we do for him” and “my friend is truly stupid”, a rampage of judging and finger-pointing went on and on… and on… until I sat down, having finished boiling water for the lemon tea I was making.

I said a few “kind words” about how much I appreciated people, anybody really, being labeled and judged behind their backs, without even the smallest amount of appreciation for who they are, what they’ve done and what they will do and shortly after, interestingly enough, it was only me and my uncle having the conversation.

We had a talk, which I won’t go over in too much detail, but in one particular instance, I asked him, can you, at this point of your friend’s life, say something good about him?

If there were crickets in my house, I knew they would be chirping right about then.

I then asked him, wouldn’t you be saying all sorts of wonderful things about the man, if he actually died?

“So on the day of his funeral, you would be talking about all his great deeds, about his love for his family, about his vision for a better Hong Kong and so on and so forth, on his deathbed. But before then, you absolutely refuse to say one good thing about the man.”

He simply agreed.

My Uncle loves my company. During his stay in Canada, he has canceled and changed several plans in order to take a walk with me and chat about various things, and I listened intently as he shared his vast experience as an owner of a Taxi company and a man with really, a very colorful history behind himself. So, he loves being around me.

I knew this, and I told him why he loved being around me:

I always thought good things about him. And I listed a few of these things to him, such as Uncle, you are a wonderful husband and father to your family, a fantastic Kung Fu master with awesome loyal students, I trust your natural genius and abundance, I know you to be at this very moment a world influencer at inspiring people around you to be more daring and more loving.

He simply accepted this, and was happy about this. And then I asked him, your friend is the same. Please start saying these kinds of good things about him. At least one good thing, I feel it would help.

{Insert long, awkward silence}

You can say it after me… if it helps. My friend is a…

He refused, very passionately! He missed an opportunity, to turn what he called a friend, into an actual friend. If you can’t even say one good thing about someone, can you really call yourself their friend?

I realized then, that to be a good friend to others, is to think good things about other people, and mean it.

This may be the easiest thing to do in the world for me, and I see everybody else as being able to easily do this in their lives, because everybody is truly, truly awesome.

Connect me on Facebook | Twitter | Google + | LinkedIn