初二（6）吕雨桐 指导教师 季敏
Life is full of uphills and downhills, and it is important for there to be someone to help you go through the miserable times and see the rainbow after the storm. This person can be your mother, father, brother, sister, but it can also be your true friend. Everybody needs a true friend to share their happpiness with on the heights and be supported when they are mid-way to success or going through an inciting point of life. Therefore, I think a true friend must first understand you, have a loving and supportive heart, and be a person who goes along very well with you.
Someonewise once said, almost half of all the problems of the world are caused either by selfishness or misunderstanding, so it is important for one of your best problem-solvers to understand you.It is very difficult for people that have different social and political backgrounds to understand each other, but it is not impossible. For instance, one of my true friends lives in Virgina in the U.S. We understand each other very well, so you should not avoid making friends with people who have very different backgrounds with you. On the other hand,however, we have to consider that sometimes the understanding cannot be achieved by explianation or communication. People come to conclusions based on what they see or have seen, and it is sometimes impossible to let someone believe what you have seen: a millitary-style march of middle-school students would be unimaginable in the U.S., and having a traditional Chinese festival being commonly known as Korean or Japanese is also unimaginable in China. So, a friend needs to be a person who considers you understandable, and you might have to find each other by fortune.
As I said, another quarter of all the problems are caused by selfishness, so a true friend of yours should also have a loving heart and a supportive attitute towards you. We all need to be supported when we are depressed, trusted when we are miserable, and found by someone else when we are lost. My American friend gave me a sense of comfort and belonging when I first went to the U.S., and her support had played a key role in the development of my adaptation skills, and it has triggered blossoms of new ideas in my mind. Having a selfish "friend" who is also full of hubris, I suppose, would have the opposite effect, and I think that can be proved by any experiences we have with an exeremely selfish and over-confident person. With a suppportive attitute and the basic understanding, a person can become a true friend of yours. However, there is yet another important element to consider, and it can determine and has already determined the future of many friendships--your personalities.
In my opinion, the dispositions of a friend needs to be fit with yours. My aunt and my grandmother on my father's side all have a warm and loving heart, but they both have a pretty dominent personality, so they often get angry at each other. In comparison, my best friend's personality is not as dominant as mine, and we had never gotten angry with each other: she likes how I always take in the roll of delivering information, and I like how she always listens and tells me her opinion on things. It gives us both a fuzzy feeling. With this third element, I would say that a long-lasting friendship would be achieved.
Start to look for you true friends, and keep you friendships with the friends you already have. Remember, life is full of uphills and downhills, and a true friend can be a treasure at your troubled times, and, therefore, the lasting energy that keeps your heart full of light and away from staying in the deep shadows of darkness.
