Disclaimer: This post was based on the movie, but read the books. Seriously. Also note that spoilers follow, so if you haven’t yet read or watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and you plan to, you might want to skip over this.

Lesson #6: Friends: Sometimes, you just can’t live without them.

Literally.

Ron Weasley would be dead right now if it weren’t for Harry Potter’s quick thinking (and, of course, the Half-Blood Prince’s ratty old Potions book).

I’m glad this series is focused solely on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, because if I had to point out all the instances throughout the entire series that show just how important friendships are – well, it’d take days.

Friends help us when our lives become stressful by offering comic relief or rolling up their sleeves and helping us get the job done. Friends look out for us – both when we know we’re in trouble and when we don’t – and they stick around to support us even when the rest of the world has turned its back on us. Friends praise us when we succeed and console us when we fail, and a true friend is just as quick to applaud us when we’re right as they are to correct us when we’re wrong.

Keep these points in mind as you’re thinking about friendships:

• Let your friendships develop organically. You can’t force a friendship and in trying to do so, you might just create an enemy.
• Be careful about letting any tendencies you might have to judge a book by its cover or take things at face value determine who you choose to be friends with. ‘Nough said.
• Be able to tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy friendships. Your friend might bend over backwards for you when you need her, but if she spends the rest of your time together nagging you to do things you don’t want to do, making you feel bad about yourself, or overall monopolizing the friendship and making everything about her, chances are you’d be better off focusing on other friendships.
• Spend time nurturing and strengthening your friendships. With today’s advancements, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t stay in touch with your friends. E-mail, Facebook, text messages – even old-school communication like snail-mail and regular ol’ telephones – make it impossible to come up with an excuse not to stay in touch with your friends.
• Learn to forgive your friends. They’re fantastic, but they’re not perfect. Your friends are going to make mistakes just like you do, but understand that – most times – those mistakes aren’t big enough to erase all the good times you’ve had together.

Tomorrow, we’ll wrap up with the importance of keeping on. In the meantime, what are some of the happy memories, or sad regrets, that come to your mind as you think about your friends? What “words of wisdom” would you pass along to others about friendships?

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Related Posts

• ‘Half-Blood Prince’ Life Lesson #7: Keep Going
• ‘Half-Blood Prince’ Life Lesson #5: Beware Of Face Value
• ‘Half-Blood Prince’ Life Lesson #4: Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover
• ‘Half-Blood Prince’ Life Lesson #2: Avoid Unhealthy Relationships
• ‘Half-Blood Prince’ Life Lesson #1: Laugh!

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