WHY BOOKS MIGHT BE BETTER FRIENDS THAN PEOPLE
Ladies and gentlemen, books might actually be better friends than people. Have you ever been wounded by anybody? That is what friendship would do to you. But not friendship with books. It is friendship with other people that would do that. Friends would use you, friends would abuse you. At other times, people only call you friends, because they are gaining something from you. And if you look careful into your own heart, you will discover that the only people you call friends, are people who you get something from, who are kind to you and who treat you well.
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the World, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.” ― James Baldwin
So, even you could be egocentric in friendship. It is not just other people who are egocentric towards you in their friendship. If you are friendly with only people who treat you well, it could be that you too are using your friends for you own good. The bottom line is, what we call friendships is often the marriage of convenience and the use of another.
When you become a friend with books, you are only enriched. I have not heard anybody of recent complaining of their books using them. No, no, no! Books would not use you. Books will not take advantage of you. Books will only enhance you. Books will enlarge you. Books will strengthen you. Books will lift you. Books will promote you. Books will embolden you. Books will multiply you.
“A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.” ― Henry Miller
Hello there, has anyone of you being rejected of late? Well, I think I could get who those people are that rejected you. Is it your boyfriend? Could it be your girlfriend? Your community? Your family? Your colleagues? These are feelings we come across on regular basis, because they are feelings common to men. In human relationship with each other, we tend to reject each other. We cry, we weep out of the hurt we cause each other through rejection. But you don’t have to suffer that when you make books your best friends.
Many of us most of the time feel cheated. Because people we expect much from don’t often satisfy our desires and expectations. Often our conclusions are subjective, the other party might not think quite the same way. To make things worse, the other party might think that you are the one who is making them feel used and cheated. These are things that happen in human relationships. We accuse each other. We are mad at each other. We point accusing fingers. We look for who to blame. These are some of the things you can avoid if you will only choose to make books your best friend.
“I had already found that it was not good to be alone, and so made companionship with what there was around me, sometimes with the universe and sometimes with my own insignificant self; but my books were always my friends, let fail all else.” ― Joshua Slocum
To be continued tomorrow…
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CHURCH AND NATION
By Pastor Sunday Adelaja.
