Life is tough. In order to get through life, you have to be tough as well because things are going to get hard, and you need to step up and handle the situations life throws at you. It’s for this reason that you should be tough on your friends and family.

I’m hard on my friends. I tell them the truth, call them out on their bullshit, I pick on them, not in a way that is malicious, so that hopefully, when life throws them problems and they try to avoid them, I can push them to solve those problems, or so that when someone else throws negativity or conflict their way, that they will be tough enough to deal with it.

What kind of friend or family member would I be if I didn’t tell my friends and family the truth? Do I want them to make poor decisions? Or to be taken advantage of or have them be a weak and soft person? If I don’t tell them, then who will? I don’t want to be coddled by my friends or family. I want them to tell me when I’m messing up and tell me to be better.

It’s a hard thing to do. It hurts and sometimes people take it the wrong way. I’ve had friends and family avoid me or stop talking to me because I held them accountable and when they know they are messing up, they avoid me because they don’t want to hear it. I don’t have any bad intentions. I want them to be strong, be better, be tougher, because if I’m not hard on them, life will roll them right over and I will be in part responsible for it because I didn’t warn them, strengthen them up and tell them the truth.

I want the truth from my friends and family too. It hurts, but if you take it with gratitude, and don’t aim the pain you feel at the one who told you the truth, it can be useful. My father was tough on me. He used to make me wrestle him nearly every day as a kid and he would tie me in knots, and I’d cry, and I didn’t understand at the time that he was making me tough.

I thought he was being mean and unloving until I started playing sports, getting in fights with other guys and then I realized how tough me made me and how I didn’t fear anyone else as much as I feared my dad.

He would make me do all sorts of chores and recruit me to help him with all of the home repairs or force me to work on the car with him for hours and hours, and all I wanted to do was hang out with my friends. God help me if I did it with a bad attitude too.

I sanded nearly every square inch of my parent’s house by hand, painted it with my dad and learned that doing it faster and the correct way was the only way to make the suffering shorter. I hated it until I joined the work force and had car problems of my own.

I started working and easily surpassed all of my peers that didn’t have a similar upbringing. My friends saw me getting promoted and felt jealously or thought I was receiving favoritism. What they didn’t see that my bosses saw was the discipline and work ethic that my dad instilled in me. And that’s not just me tooting my own horn. In fact, my brother worked at the same job that I did at two different companies, and we always got asked how we became such good workers, and I would always answer that it was because of my dad.

One time when I was at the gym with my dad, another thing he had me do with him even when I didn’t want to that I am eternally grateful for, a coworker came up to us and told my dad what good workers my brother and I were. My father was hard on me, and I am so thankful that he was because he taught me to be tough, hard-working and gave me a good example of what a man should be. I only wish I could go back to being a kid and had been appreciative of what he was doing for me when I was sanding those walls and that had a better and more grateful attitude about it.

A good friend will accept what you say and improve upon it. I had a roommate who was going through a rough time, drinking way too much, sleeping on our couch because his room was too dirty, never doing dishes, basically being a shitbag and I was tired of it. I told him that I needed to talk to him and called him out on everything, and I wasn’t mean about it, I didn’t yell or insult him. I told him I cared about him but that his behavior had to stop, or he couldn’t live with me anymore.

He accepted it like a real man. We cleaned the house together, he cleaned his room, we started working out together and we stayed roommates for 5 years. And he called me out on my bullshit too, and we always made the effort to be better. We made each other better men and have been great friends ever since. He is like a brother to me, and we are not afraid to be honest with each other.

If I wasn’t tough on him, and he wasn’t tough on me, we would’ve been left to become worse human beings and would have inevitably started to resent one another. You also need to be tough on your friends when they are not being confident and not going after what they want.

The same friend loved to write and always wanted to get into film and directing. He didn’t think he could, that he didn’t have the resources or time, excuse here, excuse there. I talked to him and told him that starting somewhere is better than never starting at all. I asked him if he wanted to be a construction worker his whole life. I was brutally honest. I told him you are going to suck at first, but that’s how you learn and get better. I used my armature art business as an example.

I have artwork that I’m embarrassed by, that I can’t believe came from my hand, but I kept on going and soon enough I had work that I was proud of, I connected with great people, did farmers markets, and although I wasn’t very financially successful, the personal growth I gained and the artistic growth I experienced from the process was worth more to me than any money I ever made from selling my art. The fact that someone would even pay me for my art was flattering.

He took my advice, and now has several short films he has made and directed and has even won awards and made commercials. I am not responsible for his success, but I definitely played a part in telling him he was being a coward and was selling himself short.

One time, the same roommate and I were at a thrift shop, trying on clothes and I tried on a blazer and asked him to take a picture so I could see how I looked. He did and started bursting out laughing. My insecurity flared up and I asked him what he was laughing about. “You look like a toy,” he laughed.

I looked at the picture, embarrassed, and realized he was right. I looked like Woody from Toy Story, skinny and awkward, standing like I was built from weak wood. It hurt, but he was right, and it was pretty hilarious. So, I laughed with him and secretly and silently thanked him for making me aware and making me want to be better. He told me what other people were probably thinking and it was better for me to hear it from him than someone else.

If some stranger had told me the same thing I would’ve been devastated, but now that he told me, if that did happen, I’d be more prepared for it, and hopefully improve myself before it ever did happen. He didn’t mean to hurt me, it was a genuine and funny thought and if I am upset about it, then I have something I need to change. It’s not his fault I looked like a tall, skinny, awkward toy. It’s my own, and I’m glad that came from a friend rather than someone else.

Not being tough on your loved ones is akin to helping them sweep their problems under the rug instead of doing your duty as a loved one and helping them lift the rug, face the problem and clean it out. If you shelter them from the world, you are doing the very people you love a disservice. If I asked you if you would let your friend sabotage themselves, you’d say no. Well, then why don’t you always tell them the truth? Because they might be upset with you? It’s not about you, it’s about the people you love, and if you love them, you’ll tell them the truth. Build them up to face their challenges, tell them the truth because nobody else will care.

I appreciate those who tell me the truth the most. If something I am told or if something that you are told offends you, appreciate that truth coming to light and strive to be mature enough to not take it as a personal attack and improve upon what was exposed by your pain.

Delivery is important. Be sure to let them know you’re saying what you’re saying, or doing what you’re doing because you care, and make an effort to help, but don’t do everything for them. Don’t be scared. If they can’t handle the truth, and cut you off because of their immaturity and insecurity, then they are probably not the kind of person you want around anyway, but give people time and be forgiving and understanding, but don’t withhold the truth or promote weakness.