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friendship lesson learned from a barn

June 14, 2009

One of the best magazine articles I’ve ever read is “It was a good barn” from an early 1990’s issue of Reader’s Digest. If you ever get your hands on old copies of Reader’s Digest magazines, you’ll find that it has better articles than today’s editions.

So anyway, back in high school I tore that page from the magazine and placed it in one of my photo albums (which I can’t find right now). Crazy. Yeah.

 

It’s about a man who visited a minister friend. While looking out from the window of the minister’s house, he saw a pieces of wood still looking sturdy  that were scattered around. The man asked why they were lying there getting ruined and wasted. The minister said the pieces of wood used to be the building blocks of a big barn (a shed or storage of farm equipment and even home of farm animals, Manny). The barn’s owner neglected it for months. Slowly, rain, melted snow, wind and other forces of nature destroyed the wooden bolts that held the pieces of wood together. The owner failed to mend the problem right away so the barn collapsed.

 

The pieces of wood are still good, the minister said. But there’s nothing to bind them together anymore.

 

The man remembered a friend who he has not talked to in months.

 

He realized that friendship, like the barn, must be taken care of in order for it to survive.

 

Small fights need to be settled as early as possible before it breaks the bonds of friendship. Unspoken apologies, unexpressed feelings, unexplained actions and time not spent together all act as destroyers of any relationship. Upon realizing this, the man borrowed the minister’s phone and dialed the number of his estranged friend.

 

Friendships, like all relationships, are only as good as the bond that keeps them together.

 

All this sentimental stuff makes me crave for some chocolate. And as for estranged friends, hmm. I wish them the best. But no phone calls yet. Pride, darn pride.

Posted by kablogg at 4:32 pm | permalink

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