Friends – Don’t Hurt Each Other…At Least Not On Purpose

Yesterday I think I nearly broke my friends ribs.  We were playing basketball at the end of our workout (something we do all the time).  As we both went for a loose ball I somehow went under his arm from behind and drilled him in the rib cage with my shoulder.  


He went down immediately – moaning and groaning about his ribs and he think they cracked.  He was feeling it the rest of the day but kept acting like he was fine.  I feel horrible about it.  He is planning on running a 10k next week and that accident will probably cause him more pain during the race than he would have had otherwise.  


I didn’t mean to do it.  It was an accident.  But I can’t take it back.  The damage is done.  In this case it physical damage.  But isn’t it true that sometimes we hurt our friends emotionally or they hurt us emotionally?  I’ve hurt friends feelings before just by having other friends.  That was totally unintentional.  I’ve also hurt friends’ feelings by backing out on commitments I made to do something with them.  That is the emotional equivalent of walking up to my friend and physically punching him in the face while we were playing basketball.  


We all make mistakes though – right?  The important thing is to learn from them and change the behavior moving forward.  The strongest friendships survive the mistakes along the way.