“Between Honor and Friendship…”
by: Rajah Lyvester Dizon, BS Psych
Between honor and friendship? … such a confusing situation or should I say a decision that is really hard to choose from…
First, let’s take up the meaning of honor, according to the Websters dictionary- it is a high reputation, a high rank, achievement, or distinction, a title… when we talk about education and academic performance. Each and everyone of us knows that it is a reward for being excellent and outstanding in a certain aspect of education. Having a “true” honor, I think, is hard but fulfilling, aiming for an honor is even harder, which can only lead and result to two things: whether you’ll succeed or fail… But on the brighter side, it serves as a challenge to those ambitious persons out there who are very eager to taste success in their chosen fields, but the most interesting and exciting about it is that, when you had found out, after all the time and effort you had sacrificed just to fulfil this dream, that you had just step on the otherside, finding out that finally you had reach what you’ve been aiming for, a dream fulfilled, an honor you’ve always been longing to have!
Happy are those who are granted with such honor, it really feels like you have just included your name on the list, that you are more intelligent, excellent, and more deserving than anyone else, then you praised and admired by people which makes it even more comforting, making you feel like a more “superior” individual. But all things have its bad and good effects, the good thing about it is you are recognize, you have your own title on the list, you are praised, you are admired, but taking its darker side, it may cause you to fall from your peak of success, crushing you to the ground… you may only become greedy and selfish, hard-headed and over-confident if you let yourself be a slave of your fame, without trying to bow down and look to where you had once been, you can say you are already up there but that doesn’t mean you can never fall on the ground again, may it’s a long process but it is possible!
Next, friendship- a state of being friendly toward or intimate with another. Friends…?! We have so many, you meet a person, you talk to him, you share some thoughts, then you can already consider him as your friend, it’s that easy to find someone you can call a friend- whether true or a fake one… If you ask someone what a friend means to him, he’ll reply that it is someone whom he can trust, whom he can rely on when he’s troubled, who is always there beside him all the time… this is common to us, it is not unusual on our understanding as a person. Really, it is true, we need some company throughout our lives, to help us… as the saying goes, “No man is an island”. That solitude is not included in the vocabulary of mankind, that isolation is non-existing.
Now, connecting the two, honor and friendship, most people are confused about this, cannot make up his mind and decide because they are both important in a man’s life, making it complete. Basing on my experienced, I have known a person, my high school classmate, she had always been a consistent honor student and she have a friend, her bestfriend, which is also aiming for honor, a really determined one. As I see it, they really treated each other like sisters, they always go with each other, they have the same taste of things and they are really happy being with each other, but that’s only when they are not inside the classroom, ever since, they had been rivals on such rank, they are different inside the class… Whenever they see an opportunity, they always grab it to outrank the other one. But I know that they didn’t want things to be that way, but what can they do, they’re choosing between their future over their friendship. The only solution is that, one must give way and the other must proved she is really worthy for an honor, but they are both deserving… And so, the other one give way, she sacrificed her title for her friend’s happiness and fulfilment, because her friend had been her close rival but she can’t seem to outrank her, so she just gave it away, even though it’s hard for her… maybe she’s thinking that, that can be a reason for their separation as friends. So the other one proved to her that she can as best as hers and that made their friendship a little livelier and like a test they had successfully overcome. I’ve always admired that girl for she let go of something that had always been hers for the sake of friendship!
That was just an example of the consequences one might experienced when he will someday face such situation. The world had blessed each and every person a very special power- the “Power of Choice”. He may choose to give or to take, to stay or to go… and of course suffer the consequences or reap the reward for his actions. Sacrificing a very important part of his life for the decision of keeping something more valuable than anything else, because he knows that it is the right thing to do without hesitating.
