Psychosocial Health

Let us become friends

Good interpersonal relationships bring us joy, comfort and hope, while friendlessness may make us sad, lonely, and frustrated. To live a joyful life, you need the appropriate social skills to get along with people harmoniously and to gain friendship. You can pay attention to the following:

(1) Understand yourself

The first step in gaining friendship is to have a good understanding of yourself. You can then make good use of your strengths and improve your weaknesses.

A simple way to have a better understanding of yourself is to listen to the comments made by people you trust. Furthermore, you may reflect on yourself by asking if you would like to get along with people who behave like you. You may also read more, think more and participate more in social activities, so as to cultivate your interests and talents.

(2) Accept yourself

With a good understanding of your own strength and weakness, you can then learn to accept yourself. This does not mean that you give up yourself because you cannot change your weakness. Accepting oneself means understanding that everyone has his/her own weakness and thus one should not be self-doubting. Indeed, one can shift the effort from hiding his/her weakness to focusing on overcoming the weakness and keeping up the strengths. The methods include:

  • setting realistic and achievable goals to improve ourselves step by step
  • acknowledging that everyone is unique, possessing strengths and weaknesses
  • preventing unnecessary comparison with others
  • recording good deeds, giving ourselves a hearty cheer and building up a positive self-image

(3) Accept other people

Because no one is perfect, we shall try to bear with other people's shortcomings. You can try the following:

  • get along with people sincerely and learn to respect others
  • pay concern to others actively and offer help readily
  • try to understand reasons behind others’ behaviours and sympathise with people
  • avoid judging others too early so as to prevent misunderstanding
  • do not expect too much from others because no one is perfect
  • learn to appreciate people's strength and avoid focusing on their faults only
  • pay more attention to and praise people's good deeds

(4) Be sensitive in social situations

This is the ability to recognise your own and others' emotions. To practice, you can

  • listen to what people say
  • try to empathise with them
  • acknowledge their feelings
  • actively invite them to express themselves

(5) Social expression

This is the ability to express your opinion, standpoint or feeling verbally and nonverbally. To practice this, you can:

  • express your views firmly and accurately
  • speak honestly. Do not disguise or do not be shy
  • maintain appropriate tone and eye contact
  • remain rational and calm when you express emotions such as anger, discomfort or fear

Conclusion:

Human interaction and friendship building is a knowledge as well as an art. There is no simple formula nor end point to making friends. Through personal development and continuous learning, interpersonal relationships become our precious assets. What people bring us will then be happiness and pleasure, instead of burden, trouble and conflicts.

(Revised in June 2022)

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