Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practices. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation.
True friends don't hold us back spiritually or pull us down when we're trying to rise and progress. True friends protect us. True friends help us be better than we would be on our own.