On Friends in Disgrace

It had dinned into us that each one is master of their destiny.

Also, we will know who our friends are when we are in disgrace.

A disgrace, however, has many causes.

Sometimes, despite all well-intentioned advice, despite all signals, we are the promoters of our fall.

We may all have heard the proverbial “I told you so,” but we also know that it has never been, or is not, enough.

And when we are the promoters of our disgrace, when, despite all advice from our friends and family, and out of our own will, we persist in what is wrong, and so we continue the wrong path and find ourselves in a difficult situation, what then do we expect our friends to do?

I had this dear friend who was in and out of jobs despite being well into his forties. For one reason or another, he couldn’t keep his job or start a career. He wasn’t looking for a job, but he had his preferences. He only applied to managerial jobs. He lived on credit between jobs, hiding from collection agencies, borrowing money from his friends, and never returning it. I could help sometimes, but my means are also limited. At some point, we, the friends, concluded that this man felt in his inner self that it was our obligation to help him maintain his way of life, which wasn’t cheap, for he was selective in his clothes and food. When funds became scarce, he became a petty thief, and so on, but it went on for him like an avalanche.

Medical, psychiatric help? You name it. He received it all.

A fall has three steps. It begins with bad behaviour, which mutates into bad habits, which become vice. It falls all on the wrong side of life.

Regretfully, examples like the above are many that sometimes affect the lives of everybody around this person, who is finally left alone.

And so, what else can we do when confronted with such a person, who happens to be a friend or family?