Your Better Self with Akanna: 3 Kinds of Friends

I came across a YouTube video recently.  It was a snippet from one of T.D. Jakes’ preachings.  It was only about 7 minutes long, but it did a good job of summarising 3 types of people you will need in life in order to accomplish your goals and fulfill destiny.

Now, I don’t know how true this is.  I haven’t lived a long enough span of life to be able to confirm that these are the 3 kinds of ‘friends’ you will meet and work with in life.  However, he seems to make sense.  Also, looking at my life and the lives of those around me, I can sort of see the trend.

I thought to present it here today as an article for you to see if this is true in your life, for you to be open to discussing it, and for you to be careful in relating with those you come across in life; because not everyone is for you.  There are a few who are for you no matter what; there are some who are for what you represent and not necessarily for you; and there are many who are merely against what you are against and so they ‘appear’ to be for you.

Jakes does a good job of categorizing these people in our lives into the 3 kinds of friends. Let’s look at each category closely.

Confidants
These are the people in your life who will love you unconditionally. They are into you for the long haul. You’ll have only a few of these people in your life.  People often mistake this and go about telling everybody everything about them –even on social media.

Starting out in life, good confidants are usually your parents and siblings because they know everything there is to know about you at that stage.  They watch your every move. So why not confide in them already?  As you grow up though, you’ll begin to do things outside their line of sight, so they don’t know you as well anymore even though they think they do.

For a man to cling to his wife, he has to leave father and mother first. This means he has to leave father’s financial support and, thereafter, mother’s emotional support. This means his sole confidant should no longer be his mother, but now his wife.  People get this wrong and still retain their mothers as their primary confidantes, leaving their wives often in the dark; creating a battlefield for mother-in-law/daughter-in-law wars.

Moving further than marriage on to fulfilling destiny, we should have people in our lives who have already accomplished what we’re trying to accomplish in life – mentors.  They should also be our confidants.  We give them as much information about ourselves as we can, so they know exactly where we’re at and can then help take us exactly where we ought to be.

Confidants are few. They are your inner circle of friends.  You need people who are for you, with you, those who will confront you when you’re wrong and help straighten you up! But remember that you must prioritize them even within that circle.  Some must know more about you than the others do, in order to avoid conflicts and hiccups in reaching your goals and fulfilling destiny.

Constituents
These ones are not into you like your confidants are. They are into WHAT you are, not WHO you are.

I have a brother-in-law who was the CEO of a large company. Let’s call him ‘Bob’, which is obviously not his real name.  I noticed that Bob had only a few friends who would come to his house, play scrabble with him, accompany him on family trips, bring their kids over, etc.  It was always the same people.  Meanwhile, I knew he did business with a ton of other people out there, so where were they?  Why did I never see them in Bob’s home?

I asked my sister that question once, and she gave me a profound answer.  She said Bob had become good at differentiating between friends of Bob and friends of the CEO.  So, friends of Bob were invited to Bob’s home, and friends of the CEO were limited to his office.  That’s a wise man.  I know many ‘big men’ who open their homes to any and everybody in the name of doing business and living large.

Your constituents are for what you are for and as long as you are for what they are for, they will work with you, walk with you, hang around you, bring you Christmas hampers, etc.  But as soon as you’re out of office, you won’t see them anymore.  So be wise and differentiate your confidants from your constituents.

You actually do need them, your constituents, to further your agenda, your goals, your business, your very life.  At the same time, keep in mind that if they meet someone else who can give them what you give them and more, off they go!  Just don’t be surprised when that happens.

Comrades
These ones are not for you.  They are not even for what you are for.  They are against what you are against.

Have you ever heard the saying “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”?  Yes, these are those kinds of people. They team up with you to help fight a greater and common enemy. However, when that enemy is conquered, they will move on. In fact, you yourself might become their new enemy if you’re not very careful, and they will team up with a new comrade to fight you.

I think politicians see this happen to them a lot more often than to us ordinary citizens.  They have quite a number of strange bedfellows in their lives; that have permanent interests but can never be permanent friends.

I know it could also happen in our individual lives, but I don’t seem to have any concrete examples to share.  These are generally people who come into your life to fulfill a particular purpose.  As soon as that purpose is fulfilled, they are gone.  The purpose could even be a good one;  it’s like a guy being friends with a girl who’s in a toxic relationship, helping her walk away from it and then not allowing himself to be the rebound, but moving on from her and leaving her a better and healthier person for others to date.

Comrades will leave you better off than you were, most of the time, so be neither surprised nor upset when they do leave you; expect it and be glad.

Confidants, Constituents and Comrades.

Now, we just have to be wise enough to pick our inner circles carefully, our confidants; those with whom we can share our dreams and goals safely; those in our corner.

If you share them with your constituents, they will desert you and try to fulfill them without you.  A business partner of my brother-in-law’s once tried this on him –almost stole his business deal from him when he went seeking advice on how to carry it out.

If you share them with your comrades, they won’t support it because, remember, they’re not for you, neither are they for what you are for.  They are merely against what you are against; and that’s where it should end.

The blessing is in the inner circle, the confidants, because they’re the hardest kinds of friends to find.  So, spend most of your life choosing, replacing, fine-tuning, understanding and fellowshipping with your confidants, your inner circle.  All the other kinds of friends will come and go, but these ones are your best friends for life!