Hello Everyone. Today I am back with one of the topic which is extremely close to my heart and on which I can talk on ages. Everyone has a family and everyone of us have Friends. For few of us, Friends are more than “Just Friends” and are Family. But few share different experiences altogether

Let’s talk about both Family and Friends. Family is something that we all know which includes our blood relations. Family is something with whom we are born with. Family is an entity which holds our hands right from the time we were born until our death. Family gives us our name/ our identity and passes on with family names and traditions. Family invests time and money to make us a responsible adult and nourishes us with right values. With the help of family we become an independent adult who can take care of ourselves. Not only this, Family sacrifices a lot to make their child an adult like cutting off their expenses so that children can have some quality higher education. Both the parents earn and runs into overtime so that they can help giving their children quality life. So, I would say we are all because of our family. If family would not have been there then I cannot think of our existence too. Family is the first entity who shapes us what we are. When time passes on, our family becomes our friends too like a mother might be a best friend to her daughter or a father may be a best friend to his son or siblings themselves are best companions to each other. We have known family since the time we were born and hence we happen to learn each other very strongly.

Now coming to friends, you may call as friends/ colleagues/ Sometimes room mates etc. All belong to same category. This is the second entity with whom we bump with each other apart from family. As children we come along with school mates, then we get to meet with second set of mates in college, then when we go out of our houses either for further education or for pursuing our job and here we have another set of friends which we call as room mates. If we are out for further studies then we come to know more about our higher education friends in our institutions and if we are out for job then we bump with our colleagues. Even our neighbours next door or people living in rented apartments also become our friends. 

So, now did you saw a wide difference between Friends and Family. Family (If I talk about a nuclear family) is a very small entity but If you talk about Friends, they are in every walk of life as soon as you move out of four walls of your house. But again, I would emphasize here that Family is permanent and that Friends will come and go and they will change with time because their bonding’s will change with time and situations. As soon as you move on with new phase of life, you will have new set of friends. Simple example- as soon as you become a mother, you will accompany all new mothers around you/ as soon as you will enter into new job then you will again have new friends. So count of friends will increase day by day. But count of family members will remain the same. 

Now coming to the most interesting fact, No matter what, how many friends you have or how big your list of friends is, there will always be only handful (only 3-4) of friends who will always be there with you and for you. Talking about my personal experience, I also have only 5-6 best friends whom I can count on my fingers. And believe me, I am a lucky person to have them in my life. 

Most of them say that school friends last forever. With me, this is not the case. My best friends whom I can count on my fingers are either from my work colleagues or my PG mates. But these friends are more than “Just Friends” because they are my family. They have seen both my “Up’s and Down’s”. They have seen me cry in the worst phase of my life and they have also seen me happy on cloud 9. 

Another interesting point to note is that as I already mentioned that Family is something with whom you are born with and you had no choice but when it comes to friends, we choose them. Always choose your friends with caution and invest in right friendships and never ever forget your old friends because they have already proved their worth. 

I will sum up this article with a note stating that always keep your family and friends hand in hand. Never hurt one for the sake of another. Friends will say or interfere only till a limit but Family will intervene even crossing their limits and trust me there is no harm. Family only intervenes when you are going into extreme situations. But having said that, please do not ignore any one of them because your existence is there because of family and your happiness and sustainability is there because of your friends. Both together creates wonderful human beings.