Will it promote goodwill and friendship?

Some thoughts are the sources of antagonism and confrontations, once they are put into harsh and abrasive words. Some words are the proximate causes of fights and even wars. Some writers are prone to very provocative phrases and sentences. It seems these are their trademarks and signatures. I have come to a crossroad when a few weeks ago, I joined the Rotary International.

Becoming a Rotarian is a life-changing experience for me. I just took my oath as full-pledged member of Rotary International a week ago. But this early, I can feel that the Rotary is making me a better person, a more mindful human being, a considerate lawyer and a kinder and more understanding opinion-writer. Now, that I am already a Rotarian, I always contemplate first before I email my columns. I always think of the implications and consequences of the words I write. Today, I am conscious of the questions of good will and better friendships. I wish to change the fixated notion that to be an excellent columnist one has to be fierce, aggressive, confrontational and even antagonistic. I figure now, as a Rotarian, that it does not have to be so.

According to a Brazilian proverb, goodwill makes the road shorter. If that is so, then our journey in this world would then to be easier if we consciously intend to establish goodwill instead of bad blood, to promote better friendships instead of making provocations for conflicts. Duncan Stuart once wrote: Goodwill is earned by a series of many friendly and kind acts. But it can be lost by only error or fault. It has been said that it is better to be at peace than to be always right. But Buddha says that Peace comes from within and we should not seek it from the outside. Henry David Thoreau once wrote: The language of friendship is not words but meanings. It is therefore our responsibility as human beings to create meanings in our thoughts, in words and in our acts and decisions.

On friendship, Helen Keller once said: I would rather walk in darkness with a friend than in the light alone. Cicero wrote: Man's best support is a very dear friend. Walton Wendell also wrote: A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. The famous Virginia Woolf was reported to have written: Some people go to their priests, others to their doctors, but i to my friends. Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady of US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, said once: Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart. Alexander Dumas said: Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives and remembering what one receives. This means that to be a friend, one must not be self-centered.

Friendship, according to George Elliot, is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe, with a person, having neither to weigh one's thoughts nor to measure one's words. Khalil Gibran, the poet, once wrote: How distant I am with strangers even when I am with them. How close I am with friends even when they are far away. Charles Darwin, the scientist, wrote this: A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth. Mohammad Ali (Cassius Clay), the boxing champ, dared to have said: If you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything. St Thomas Aquinas, the most learned saint, once wrote: Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends, even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.