▶ Your Answer :
Some
people think that it is better to have friends who are similar to them than
those who are different from them. However, in my opinion, having friends who
have different backgrounds and thought has obvious advantages rather than
having friends who are similar to me. There are two reasons: First, it enables
people to be considerate toward other people. Second, people experience
something new by having friends who are different from them. First
of all, people become considerate and tolerant when they have relationship with
friends who have different thoughts. To be specific, if people have different
cultures, backgrounds, or thoughts, it is hard to understand each other. To
overcome the difference of their thought, they must listen carefully other's
opinion and try to understand their thought. In this process, they can learn
endurance and tolerance so that they would have abilities to respect other's
opinion. For example, there is a study conducted by the Ministry of Education
with 500 university students as respondents. The purpose of the study was to
determine whether having foreign friends is related to consideration or not. There
were two groups monitored. First group was formed of students who have foreign
friends. Another group consisted of students who do not have foreign friends. They
were asked to take the tests to measure their level of ability to understand
others. The researchers compared the outcomes and recorded that the former
group was inclined to understand other people well and have better personal
connection than the latter group. This demonstrates that having friends who are
different has a positive effect on the ability to respect others. Second,
people can gain diverse experience by having friends who are different from
them. To explain, I believe that experience is one of the most essential
factors of success. Imagine people who have only similar friends. They will do
the same things every day. They cannot only gain a wide variety of experience
but also broaden their horizon of the world by having diverse friends who have
different experience and hobby. I will take my experience as an example. When I
was an university student. I used to play computer game with my friends who
joined the same computer game club. I always talked about games and played
games with the friends so that my view was so narrow. Someday, I became closer
to my roommate. It was a turning point in my life since he taught me many kinds
of funny activities. I changed my sedentary life style. I played sports,
enjoyed surfing, and traveled all around the world with the friend. Consequently,
I was able to experience many things by hanging out with the friend who was
different from me. In
conclusion, people can develop their ability to understand others by having
friends who are different from them. Moreover, they can gain diverse experience
after hanging out with the friends. In this regard, it is required to have
friends who are different from you rather than those who are similar to you. |