© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete 2005 revised text of Building Yourself, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's guide to living the successful life.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Building Yourself Table of Contents
Previous Section - Next Section

• As the yellow gold is tried in fire, so the faith of friendship must be seen in adversity. Ovid (43 B.C.—18 A.D.)

Sometimes you find yourself becoming friendly with someone because you're in the same boat, you have some superficial things in common. There's nothing wrong with that in itself. But real friendship goes deeper (and often your real friends will have less in common with you than your superficial friends). Confusing a superficial commonality of interests and tastes can blind you to some of the dangers of damaging human beings. I read a commentator on American culture who remarked that Americans form many friendships, though they tend to be more superficial than the few friendships formed by, say, many Europeans. All in all, I think the American tendency to be friendly to many people is admirable. And both types of friends can be people of integrity. But you can never assume that the casual friend will come through for you in difficult circumstances until it actually happens. It's easy enough to be somebody's buddy when the sun is shining.

Difficult circumstances themselves can be tricky to recognize. If you're successful, for example, you'll lose some of those casual friends to envy and spite. Hey—guess what—they weren't really your friends in the first place. They were, at best, amusing human companions. If the casual friend achieves some level of success, you might find yourself suddenly dropped. Both these types of experiences are very sobering, especially if you and the friend have shared some memorable experiences. Your real friends, the people with integrity, won't let you down in either of these circumstances.