In the last 3 months, we had 3
weddings in our family. Two of my nephews and one of my nieces got married. It
was a pleasant experience as all the family members got involved in organizing
the function and making a lot of preparations. It was a bonding time for all of
us in the family. I personally felt happy about the new relationships these
weddings brought into my life. Our family looked a little bigger than it ever
was, with so many new faces joining us. As it is said, marriage is not just a
joining of two persons, but two families. For sure, I know at least a 50 people
more who I did not know before. It was a time, I reflected a little deeply on
the evolving nature of relationships.
Just looking at the way family
relationships are evolving, I feel that the families are shrinking in size,
with most of the new generation not preferring to have more than two kids. Gone
are the days, when we saw large families of 8 to 12 children and so on. Those
days, we had so many uncles and so many aunts, so many cousins, whose name even
we were not sure of. But with the
current trend, the number of relations we will have in the next few years will
automatically get greatly reduced. Already, most of us are finding ourselves in
a situation where we have more friends as compared to the number of family
relations.
Try out this small exercise. Take
a piece of paper and write down the names of all the people who you know,
people whose names you can recognize by seeing their face, and the people who
in turn know you, by your name ( Not like, I know Manmohan Singh, but he does
not know me. Ha! Ha! ). You will be surprised that you cannot write more than
2000 names, no matter your age, your
memory capability or your networking skills. 2000 people in a world of over 6
billion people is such a tiny figure. Is it not?
The need to relate with people,
to share and care is one of our primary need. We as human beings crave for
social belonging and acceptance. The feeling of being as a crowd gives a sense
of well being and security. In order to achieve this we need to re-learn the
art of relating with people. We can no
more take our relationships for granted. We need to nurture them in order to
sustain them. No one is going to come talk with some one who always has a
long face, who always shows anger, who has a criticizing approach, who gives a
sly look, who gets tensed and causes tension to others, who is harsh with his
words and tone, who does not respects other feelings, who tries to unduly
dominate in a group. Infact, by doing so they are losing out on relationships,
day by day and there will be a day when they will be all alone. Even then, they
will keep blaming the people for deserting them and never realize where they
went wrong.
Let us not close the door of our
heart to new relationship. Let us always have a welcome smile, so that anyone
feels comfortable coming and talking to us. Every new acquaintance is a opportunity for a wonderful relationship to
blossom. What we are going to do with the acquaintance is totally in our
hands. We can maintain a “hi, bye” relationship or take it a little further and
try to understand them, share their interest and relate with them, know more
about their children, remember their special occasions and give gifts, visit
them when they are sick or hospitalized,
and develop a little intimacy. These little acts of kindness will go a
long way in building great relationships.
Friendliness is not a terminology
meant only for friends. It is common to all relationships. What we need to
understand is that, in the future
relationship will greatly depend upon how friendly we are with people and not
by the relationship. Let us be a friend to our relations, be it our spouse,
our children, our parents, our sister or brother, our cousins, our uncles and
aunts, our in-laws. In due course, you will find you are not alone, but you
have a great team to back you up.
Happy Reading,
D.Senthil Kannan
Article dated Oct'09
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