What You Want Versus What You Need

What You Want Versus What You Need

It’s good to have a diversity of friends.

Quiet friends who will calm you down. High-energy friends who will lift you up. Friends who will affirm what you believe and friends who will challenge your assumptions. It’s good to have friends with whom you have everything in common and friends from different cultures and traditions.

Amid this colorful palette, try to include friends who walk wisely. In fact, try to make your wisest friends your closest friends.

Life is often a trade-off between what you want and what you need. Most of us desperately want friends, so we’ll too often place compatibility above character. We want compatibility, but we need character. We need to have friends with wisdom to live the life that matters.

And when you put what you need first in your priorities, you’ll usually find compatible friends as well.

Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. —Proverbs 27:5–6