As I think about the various levels of my friendships, I
have to say that I think majority of them fall under pleasure. Pleasure is
defined as the level in which there is a mutual enjoyment. As a friend my role
is to be supportive, protective, and also entertaining. I really enjoy talking
to my friends and also hearing about their problems. Not only do I feel good
about helping them, but they find comfort in taking to me. This is a mutual
benefit for the both of us. I decided to pick pleasure over utility because in
utility while both friends benefit it states they also must be equal. My
friends and I are similar in many different aspects but we do not need to be
equal to be friends. To take the next step up to virtue, it would require a lot
of work. The biggest part of this for me would be trust. And if you have to
work hard for someone to gain your trust or work hard to give trust then it
doesn’t seem like a true friendship. A friendship should be natural and almost
effortless. Often times I feel that I go out of my way for my friends. I find
happiness in doing other things for people even if I do not benefit from this.
I do this without expecting anything in return. And not to say that my friends
are selfless or not caring, but they don’t act as often as I do. There is only
one friendship that I have in which I can say it is of true virtue. It is a
special relationship and I don’t think it could be ruined even if we tried. I
think this is possible because we started from the ground up, and have never
regressed since the beginning.
This next question is very deep and one moment in particular
sticks out in my mind. One time there was a small family feud. Typically, I am
one who keeps my mouth shut, observes what is going on, and then devises a plan
on what to do. In this particular moment, I felt as if I lost all of my
inhibitions. I know that in this situation it came purely from emotion because
it was something I have never done before. I opened my mouth and proceeded to
tell a family member off. All my life I have been taught to respect my elders
and I had never even had the guts to back talk my parents when given an order
or something I didn’t like. However, in this instance I opened my mouth and
stood up for what I believed in. At the same time it was hard to choke out the
words because I was so upset that I was crying. Another reason I know this was
purely emotion is because my family had never seen me do something like this.
And to this day, I think I am still shocked that I acted out in this manner. You
don’t think about the consequences because you are caught up in the moment and
you think about what is the right decision to make for the moment. I know it
was the right decision because I needed to speak my mind and force my family to
see what was really going on. While it was hard, I believe I learned a valuable
lesson. Sometimes in life you need to do what is right, even if it is going to
hurt someone else. Because maybe by speaking your mind it forces others to
think about their own actions.
You should always stand up for what you believe in, and in almost every choice you make in life there will be people it benefits and people it hurts. But there are choices where its not always about what is right, it can be about who you hurt. A lot of people may not agree with this but I think that there are emotional choices in life and rational choices and the hardest thing is to figure out which it is.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to you with many of my friends because I am the one who goes out of the way for everyone else and I usually don't get anything in return. It's not that I expect anything in return, because I rarely do, but sometimes it can frustrate me that I am the only one who will step up or do something during certain situations. In my story, I also spoke my mind without thinking about it and I think it is a good thing to say what you mean when the time is appropriate because you cannot always let others walk all over you.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people have been categorizing their friendships as pleasure-based friendships. Just a reminder that these categories aren't mutally exclusive. Because you struggled with making a choice between utility and pleasure, maybe they are both!
ReplyDeleteIn response to the second part of you post, I know for me, standing up against my family is one of the hardest things to do. I'm glad you were able to do what you thought was right even though it was really challenging. It is obvious that you grew a lot from that situation. Hopefully you can look back on that moment and be proud of yourself (it appears to me that you can and do).