Look around you. Unless you have small children and share in
car pool activities, the chances are pretty good that you have a superficial
relationship with your neighbors. Your
only friendships center on work relationships and they are often superficial
too. You moved away from home after college and are lucky to get back to visit
once a year, so extended families
have become a thing of the past. Until
you need them of course and then you wonder what happened? I
think our generation coined the term dysfunctional to use as an excuse for not
pursuing close relationships. Perhaps it
is not a bad thing that the current economic climate is bringing us back
together again.
I read a synopsis of the
book “Unfinished Business,” by Lee Kravitz in the Sunday USA Weekend (May
28-30) yesterday and I thought that his article addressed a lot of the same
sentiments. The author relates how his
drive for independence and his focus on work caused him to become disconnected
from other people in his life. Between
jobs, he decided to spend a year trying to mend some of the relationships in his life. In the process he felt that he had become a
more attentive husband, father, son and friend.
He relates how in the crunch of our lives, we lose touch with relatives and friends. Kindnesses don’t get recognized, simple thank
you gestures are forgotten and grudges and rivalries persist.
Whether or not or not you
have satisfying family relationships
are determined by how well you communicate with each other. Compromise, affection and respect for each
other should be nurtured through childhood, adulthood and into old age. We need each other. If we get to know each other as people and
have fun together we should be able to help each other out from one end of the
spectrum to the other.
Kravitz shares some of his
discoveries. He suggests that you take
stock of your own life. Have you lost
touch with people who were important to you?
Are there things that you wish you had done or not done? Make a list of your unfinished business and
start working on making amends. If you haven’t spoken to your child or your
parents for years, perhaps now would be a good time to start. You don’t have to
be a senior to be the one to make
the first move, but perhaps you have the time to reflect a little more on your
life than others do. Start small by
writing a note of sending an e-mail.
Reach out and reconnect. It has
never been easier to locate and communicate with people. Be sincere.
No matter what the beef, it you reach out with sincerity your friends
and family will be delighted to hear from you.
He says that the hurdles we face can seem impossibly high but you can’t
accomplish anything if you don’t take the first step. Make the first step. Don’t always wait for someone else to extend
the olive branch. We need to learn how
to mend fences and live together as families again.
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