SOMEONE OPPOSING YOU IS NOT, ALWAYS, YOUR ENEMY















 Pic.: Vimal Tulsiani


“Someone helping you is not, always, your friend
And, someone opposing you is not, always, your enemy.”

- Anonymous

I had promised my friend, Priyanko, that I would be writing on this passage, today. He  had shared it on FB, yesterday.


True, we tend to call an opposing person our enemy in the same breath as we call a helping person our friend...

The passage challenges this tendency in us... It tells: It is not not true...

And, I agree.

However, the first part of the passage – “Someone helping you is not, always, your friend” - doesn't excite me at all. Even though I know that everyone who helps me is, not necessarily, my friend - not a well-wisher of mine - I resist from calling him my enemy, either. For, I do not like to study the motive behind his help to me... Yes, I do not like to judge him... Let him, therefore, be... be a friend!

What excites me is the second part of the passage: “Someone opposing you is not, always, your enemy.”

Yes, he is not, and I can argue in favor of this...

For, I have had - and still have - in my life, many people who oppose me; some of them, very, very vehemently. In fact, they have been hell-bent to frustrate me and harass me... Yes, on the surface of it all, it seems so – that, they are my enemies, my tormentors... 

So, detesting and hating them comes as a natural response to me or to anybody, for that matter. I have had enough occasions when I have felt like going on an offensive, with the eye-for-an-eye approach...

But, then, I have stepped back and analysed the situation, objectively. I have asked:

Has the opposing person – my tormentor, my enemy – done more harm or more good to me? Has he made me a weaker or a stronger person? Has he brought the best out me or the worst out of me? Has he made me cold or compassionate in life?

I have received very clear answers for all these questions:

Yes, this person has done to me more good than harm...

Yes, this person has made me a stronger and not weaker human being...

Yes, this person has brought the best and not the worst out of me...

And, yes, this person has, definitely, made me more compassionate than a cold soul...

The opposing person, in deed, is a helping person... Therefore, he is not my enemy... He is my true friend.

Disagree?

Well, it is because you are my true friend; aren't you?



GERLAD D’CUNHA

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