Four Stages of Friendship

When you face a hard choice, who do you call?

Original

子曰：「可與共學，未可與適道；可與適道，未可與立；可與立，未可與權。」

In plain words

Confucius said: “Some you can study with, but not yet walk the Way with. Some you can walk the Way with, but not yet stand firm with. Some you can stand firm with, but not yet weigh hard choices with.”

Key words

適道shì dàoTo head toward the Way: sharing a direction in life.
立lìTo stand: holding to principles under pressure.
權quánOriginally a steelyard weight: weighing what matters most.

Reading it step by step

Last time we sorted helpful friends from harmful ones. Today Confucius takes another angle: even good friends come in different depths.

First: four stages, each one rarer. Studying together: the same classes, the same books, the same craft. These friends are the most common. Walking the Way together: not just learning the same things but heading in the same direction, wanting the same kind of life. Standing together: holding to your principles when pressure comes, neither of you backing down. Weighing together: when you face a dilemma, being able to judge what matters most, knowing when to hold firm and when to bend. With each step up, the list gets shorter.

study togethersame classes, same books

walk the Waysame direction in life

stand togetherhold to principles

weigh togetherjudge hard choices

Each step up, fewer people

Second: why is weighing the hardest? Rules can be memorised and principles kept, but real problems never arrive in the shape of a rule. Should I change jobs? Should I put my career on hold to care for a sick parent? Should I tell a truth that will hurt? Then you need a friend who doesn't just stand beside you but thinks with you. Confucius also said that people on different roads cannot plan together. If your directions differ, you can't talk through life's big decisions.

Third: the word 如 in “don't befriend those not like yourself.” That other saying is often misread as “don't befriend anyone worse than you.” But if everyone thought that way, no one would have any friends. Here 如 means “alike”: there is no need to go deep with people whose aims you don't share. You hike on weekends; they play cards all night. It's hard to walk far together. Shared aims are what let friends polish each other and climb beyond studying together.

Try a small exercise. Write down the ten friends you saw most this year, and next to each, how many years you've known them. If they are all recent, where are the friends you dreamed with ten years ago? Either you let them go or they let you go. A healthier list might hold three or four people from the last couple of years, three or four you've known five or six years, and three or four of more than ten. The people who can go with you from studying together all the way to weighing together are usually old friends who are willing to grow old with you; seeing them, you remember who you were at eighteen.

Think, too, of class reunions. Ten years on, the questions are where do you work, what do you earn, who did she marry, which school are the kids at. No wonder people dread going. Almost no one asks: what have you read in ten years, and what have you learned? Old friends meeting again should hold up a mirror: are we nearer the road we meant to walk, or further from it? (Page 21 returns to how friends help us grow.)

You don't need many friends. You need one or two who will sit down with you before your hardest choice and help you weigh it.

One line to carry

Many will study with you. Few will weigh hard choices with you.

Today's question

If you had to make a hard decision tomorrow, who would you talk it through with? How long since you last got in touch?

Quick check

How should 如 in “don't befriend those not like yourself” be read?

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