You are necessary

 The only compliment I've received that I remember to this day is that I am a "necessary" friend. The friend who paid me this compliment was driving me home on a weekend night. We were speeding along a Texas freeway, chatting about this-and-that. I occasionally dropped directions throughout the drive, "move over to the right lane 'cause you'll be taking the next exit." Suddenly, he says to me, "you're such a necessary friend, a type of friend that most people should have at least one of." 

I'm not sure if he remembers saying this to me, but it's a moment I won't forget.

I think back to all the friendships I've had. There were the good ones, the okay ones, and the bad ones. I like to think I've impacted all my friends' lives in a meaningful way, but that's wishful thinking. All I can do is reminisce in hopes that my present self can change to make a better future for myself and those around me.

I attended high school in an affluent neighborhood, in the suburb of Allen, Texas. The 2015 median household income in my neighborhood was about $150,000. However, an adjacent neighborhood that fed into the same high school had a median household income about 40% that of Allen, at just $61,000. This discrepancy created a cultural and socioeconomic melting pot in my school, where students of all backgrounds mingled together. Due to this mixture, I became close friends with someone who I never thought I would even interact with if different circumstances occurred.

My friend was from the not-so-great, adjacent neighborhood. When he reached the age when it was legal to work in Texas, his parents expected him to pay for his own necessities: toothpaste, toothbrush, toiletries, etc.. He had to buy all of these with his own money. Any "fun" he wanted to experience had to come out of his own pocket. Since he needed to start working early, he focused on how he could make more money right then. 

Studying was less important because that was an investment in a future pay off. Since freshman year my friend was the "class clown" and always cracked jokes, not caring whether he earned a B or C in a class. Only because we were in some of the same required courses and through a couple mutual friends did I get to know him. And by the time he graduated from high school, my friend was a different person than that freshman class clown. In college he majored in accounting and later working for PwC and Deloitte.

His change wasn't solely from my own efforts, but rather from that of a community, a community of what Sheryll Cashin calls "achievement typical" students [Place, Not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity in America]. By junior year, he was friends with those within the top 10% of the class and aimed to achieve the same. My friend went from not caring about his grades to becoming academically competitive, taking nearly all AP courses in his junior and senior year schedules, and studying to perform the best he could on the SAT. If he had grown up in a different neighborhood and gone to a different high school, I wonder if he would have become the same person he is today. 

In Creating Moves to Opportunity, Raj Chetty and colleagues discuss how the children of low-income families in high-opportunity neighborhoods are more likely to rise up in the economic ladder. The mix of socioeconomic and cultural classes creates "a culture of success", "bringing together students from different backgrounds" with shared interests and aspirations. My friend and I share an interest in anime, through which we grew closer; I'm also fairly certain my focus on education motivated him to focus on his education as well. 

For our senior trip, my friends and I decided to rent a cabin in a state park. The trip cost each person roughly $250, something that my friend could not manage to budget. I didn't want him to miss out on a one-time experience of a senior trip, so I sold off currency I had in a mobile game. I managed to pay his portion of the trip with that money while my parents paid for mine. Are acts like this why he saw me as a "necessary" friend? 

I can't be sure. One thing that I can guarantee, however, is that YOU are that "necessary" friend to someone else.