Making friends is easy; maintaining friendship is not. In fact, making ourselves unpopular is a job so easily done. One slip of the tongue, one harsh word, one instance of anger and we might end up losing our best of friends. What’s more – friends may even turn into foes if this tendency is not checked.
The key to a lasting friendship is self-control. But then, this is not easy. It only comes through a strong relationship with the Almighty, and a firm commitment to the notion that self-control and self-restraint in this world will lead us to great reward in the Hereafter.
One of the toughest impediments in exercising self-control is an unfavourable response from a friend. One often gets put off by a cold response. It is not easy to put up with such behaviour. The best and perhaps the most successful way to tackle it is to keep doing good regardless of what one encounters in return. This requires great effort and profound patience. It also requires that a person should not expect anything in return for a favour he does. If it is returned, he should consider it a bonus, and if it is not, he should continue to do good as long as he can and adhere to the dictum:
Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
At all the times you can
To all the people you can
As long as you can