I am fascinated with people and relationships. One of the reasons, I studied journalism in college was because I loved hearing people’s stories. When you think about it, people’s most interesting stories usually have to do with relationships.
From a very young age, I was naturally drawn to analyzing people by paying close attention to the way they looked, how big their noses were, how their voices sounded, how they used their hands to talk, what they talked about and why, all the way down to the shoes they would choose to wear. I was especially intrigued with how they interacted with each other.
What I didn’t realize as a child was that I was practicing psychology without even knowing it. Psychology is the study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting the behavior or attitude of a person. Our relationships have so much to do with all of these things- our mind, the way it works, how it affects our actions and the ways in which we treat people, places, and things.
Relationships play a huge role in our existence. Without them, we would all be coexisting without feeling any sort of connection to one another. Imagine how different your perception of yourself would be if you had no relationships to mirror you. The truth is that we know ourselves better by how we are in relation with others. Everyone and everything is your mirror and knowing this can serve as a powerful tool for personal transformation.
How do you determine the quality of your relationships?
- is it quality time you spend together
- the kind of conversations you have
- how frequently you connect
- what you have common
- how much you know about someone or how much they know about you
- the experiences you share
- the amount of give and take (I scratch yours and you scratch mine)
Relationship building is an art. It takes time, effort, curiosity, empathy, and love. Relationships are like plants, the more you nurture and lend your attention to them, the more beautiful they grow and hold space in your life.
Recently, A wise man shared a great metaphor that inspired me to write this. He said that the child life is a ship. The mother is the hull, the father is the rudder, the grandparents are the sails, and the child is the captain. What I took from this is that we all need relationships to survive.