I discover the importance of life-long friendships play a significant role in boosting our emotional well-being and supporting good mental-health. These connections provide a sense of belonging, acceptance, and understanding. Strong bonds can help keep me emotionally balanced and assist in overcoming obstacles, and thus friendship is a crucial element in protecting my mental health. My friends can keep me grounded, help me get things in perspective, and help me manage work-life's problems. Investing time & effort is essential in building and maintaining close friendship. Based on my experience that sustaining these bonds include active listening, showing empathy, being reliable & fostering trust. Our friends can keep us grounded, help me get things in proper perspective.
I've many childhood friends since our primary school days and some had passed on including the former Malaysian Ambassador Dato' Dr, Mohd. Yusof Ahmad. When I started working, I developed true friends with strong relationship for more than five decades including Senator Syed Shahil Syed Mohamud, a professional trade unionist and community leader. Through our common interest in human values development programs, I got acquainted with a consultant, Yazdi Jehangir Bankwala, who is currently based in London. For alumni relations of Asian Institute of Management, I've established friendships with many professionals in the Asia Pacific region including Anwar Hussein Chowdhury of Bangladesh who is now residing with his family at Boulder, Colorado in the US.
I realize true friendship is a powerful human bond based on deep trust, shared values, and mutual support. It helps me live longer, healthier, and happier lives by reducing stress, offering emotional safety, and multiplying joy during good and bad times. The power of true friendship is a gift from the Almighty. It's not about quantity, but quality. It's about having someone who knows all about me - every flaw, every failure, every odd little habit - and chooses to stick around anyway. And that kind of trust is something truly rare and invaluable. I wish to thank all friends who still trust me.
Zulkifly Baharom (hajizul50@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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