Relationships

Lately, I have been working on relationships. No, don’t take that literally, I mean, I have been working on relationships as a subject! (Phew, I guess I just saved a few relationships!).

Relationships are probably the most important possession that we start with and probably end up with (and often without) in life, without quite realising it. And we don’t realise it, because we are busy acquiring other more ‘profitable’ possessions.

The problem with relationships is that every relationship tends to become unimportant or less important as we proceed to the next one. We start our relationships with our parents. We anchor everything with this one from the time we recognise a smile or a frown, without even understanding the meaning of them. All our initial fears, insecurities and troubles are resolved by this single relationship. Then comes a time when we start moving out of home and often far, to schools and colleges. Then we start working on new relationships, with friends, peers. Soon the previous one with parents is relegated to the back-burner as it is meant to be there when we need and thus is out of one’s radar. During this new phase, friends at everyplace seem to matter and soon we have many of them and with each we seem to be working at different levels. We work on relationships at schools, then colleges. By the time we reach colleges, the school relationships have become less important and a lot of energies are spent on working on the ones that we have acquired or are trying to acquire.

By the time we have settled down on the new ones and sort of relegated the school relationships in the back-burner the ones at home have been totally taken for granted. They exist as where else do they go, and of course they don’t go anywhere, they just stay back and understand.

Soon we have left colleges and are moving towards a career. Now relationships become very important as they are will be supporting us in our career. Who do we get seen with and whose understandings are to be borne with a smile, are all a matter of ‘profit for life’. Needless to say that we have also become more mature, so words which were earlier uttered without a thought are now more measured, at least with relationships which matter in the new circumstances.

Soon we acquire partners, or would-be spouses, who become the cynosure of our very existence. No other relationships seem to matter in comparison to this, (except the ones at the workplace of course)! Friends,

folks they are totally absent at this stage. The honeymoon with this relationship lasts for some time, at times, but we realise quite late that even this one has become trifle boring, what with endless hours of work pressure, competition at workplace, inflationary pressures, children (oh yes, we have forged some new relationships without realising) – just why can’t the old relationships try to understand! By the way, this old relationships are the ones with our spouses – the parents and the old friends have been forgotten, at least in terms of having to work on them!

It is our relationships that make us what we are and an entire life is spent in getting in and out of relationships without realising that these are the ones that give us maximum joys and an occasional sorrow. A time comes when we realise that it is these relationships that we have neglected which mattered the most.

While, pressures of modern day life is quite stressful, meeting two ends meet while climbing the corporate latter or fighting the materialistic peer-pressure can be quite unnerving, an acknowledgement of a relationship is not asking for too much. Life is short and when people will leave us physically or mentally, one never knows. Parents leave physically and we realise it too late. Some friends leave us mentally, and often we don’t even realise it. But tragedy is when close family members leave us mentally while physically living with us.

Relationships need to be worked on, and they need pretty hard work! Not all are able to accept just being on the list of someone’s priorities rather than being somewhere on top of his/her priority of relationships. Many a relationship is a cherished one and many we

realise was a cherished one after the person is gone. The tragedy would be when we don’t realise even after that!

Relationships need to be nurtured, and all they need is a touch, a smile, a call and a few minutes of your time.

Check it out!!