The School of Life: An Emotional Education

by The School of Life

We need to become better friends to ourselves. The idea sounds odd, initially, because we naturally imagine a friend as someone else, not as a part of our own mind. But there is value in the concept because of the extent to which we know how to treat our own friends with a sympathy and imagination that we don’t apply to ourselves. If a friend is in trouble our first instinct is rarely to tell them that they are fundamentally a failure. If a friend complains that their partner isn’t very warm to them, we don’t tell them that they are getting what they deserve. In friendship, we know instinctively how to deploy strategies of wisdom and consolation that we stubbornly refuse to apply to ourselves. The good friend is compassionate. When we fail, as we will, they are understanding and generous around our mishaps. Our folly doesn’t exclude us from the circle of their love. The good friend deftly conveys that to screw up is what humans do. The good friend brings, as a starting point, their own and humanity’s vivid experience of messing up as key points of reference. They’re continually telling us that though our specific case might be unique the general structure is common. People don’t just sometimes fail. Everyone fails, as a rule; it’s just we seldom know the details. It is ironic – yet essentially hopeful – that we usually know quite well how to be a better friend to near strangers than to ourselves. The hopefulness lies in the fact that we already possess the relevant skills ...