Yesterday I spent the morning, at the beach, sitting on the grass, chatting with a friend.
Not an old friend, a new friend, but a good friend.
The kind of friend who asks the right questions.
The kind of friend who skips over the small talk and says “how is your writing going?”.
The kind of friend who encourages me in my creative process, the kind of friend who stretches me, not by dragging me along, but by asking the right kind of question. A question that gently prods, and in that there is much encouragement.
This friend asks (amongst other things) questions about my creativity. I have other friends whose first questions are about my parenting, or my relationships, or my health.
There is a proverb that says “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”
Have you ever tried to cook with a blunt knife. It slips as you attempt to cut and it becomes dangerous, as well as useless. I don’t want to go through my life and get to the end as blunt as I was when I was born.
So I take on board the comments of my friends and as I do the dull edges get rubbed off. All of these friends are sharpening me, making me into a better person, a more useful and a less dangerous person, and for that I am grateful.