Ode to Friends

Every high schooler goes through a lot, some more than others, and maybe don’t know how to cope with it. And sometimes nothing helps more than a good friend.

During the day as the work piles on and on, you get even more stressed than you thought was possible, and all you want to do is ram your head into a brick. Then your best friend comes by and flips your whole day around, just like that. He or she helps you forget all your worries, even if it’s just for a couple of minutes.

Sometimes teenagers just really need a break from their stresses and want to unwind and just chill. According to Family Works, a family resource website, teens tend to spend more time with their peers than their family. We spend so much time with our friends that we tend to take them for granted and not realize the emotional support we get from them.

A lot of the time we open up to our closest friends and trust them with our feelings. When we are having a bad day a lot of us can alway count on our friends to help us out. We tell them about what’s wrong, we tell them what’s on our mind, we let them help us carry the weight of our lives on their shoulders. We don’t really realize it either until we have to leave them. I can say that personally when I was going through tough times in life, when I got to school and saw my friends there excited to see me, it made my life worth living. Because all of us go through tough times but our friends are always there to remind us that people care about us.

Everybody needs friends in life. It is a proven fact that people without friends are lonelier and have a lower emotional state than those with friends. Jorge Zelaya, a Sophomore here at Bingham, says, “Lonely people have more spare time, [and] they distract themselves with other things like video games or other things,” instead of spending time with actual people and making friends.

Your friends can give you that extra push you sometimes need in school, work, or life in general. Sometimes teens just have a really rough time in class and want to give up completely; but good friends will keep you in line. Zelaya also says, “[Friends] keep me on track with my classes and they also motivate me to enroll in new activities.” So your friends will also encourage you to try new things. And a lot of the time you find new hobbies through your friends, and will discover new things that will make you happy because of your friends.

Friends help with more than we realize. They make us happy when we are sad; they make us laugh uncontrollably for the stupidest reasons; they give us a hand and advice as we need; and most importantly they give us a sense of belonging and family. And for many they are their family, because family isn’t who you’re born with, it’s who you would die with.