Man is a social being, Every Man/Woman needs that social connect to feel wanted, to feel they belong to the place, to have a sense of pride, to have a sense of social security, to feel being part of a community. While the above may seem altruistic expectation to have in life, most will end up not getting most of the above things. Given this how do we navigate our future, Given that all these notions are part of life for as long as we are alive, Can we think through and be a little more systematic about these rather acting in random or in the spur of the moment ?? Can we search our own thoughts and with all the learnings from our/others life experiences, can we formulate an approach for ourselves which (we believe) will hold us in good stead?? This is my attempt at the rumblings within my mind to search my own answers -
The Trigger
This week I got 3 invitations for a not so major but few important functions. One from a once close cousins kids 1st year birthday (Infact its my parents who got the invite and my name was added as a add-on), my wife's cousins son naming ceremony and my wife's another cousin daughters naming ceremony. while the first one is in Bangalore the other two functions are about 400km from here. The 1st year birthday function is about 3 days away where as the naming ceremony is about 16-17 days away. With the receival of the invitations it got me thinking as to which one to attend and which ones not to attend.
Dilemma
It started a thread of thoughts in my mind, as to how do i want to handle such things in future. While I as a person likes to meet people, especially the ones who i happen to know from a long time. Infact my personal goal is "To have close and rewarding relationships with all the important people in my life". Being surrounded by people is one of the common elements of the future that I have envisioned for me and my family. At the same breath let me not forget to add the emotional treachery I was meted out particularly from the relatives all throughout my life. While the emotional treachery at every important phase of my life in itself can be a separate topic of its own and a blog for some other day, it spawned a new thread of thoughts in my mind as to how do I go about all the relationships in my life. Do I want to endure this emotional treachery and develop the magnanimity and hope that people turn out better in the future or just develop thick skin and be indifferent to the actions of every body? Should I just start ignoring such people and start focusing inward and on people who happen to be nice and good to me. ?? Should I just behave in a way whatever my mind think its best at that particular moment? Should I just ignore all this and just follow the herd and not have any opinion on this?? While all these may sound simple while looking at them as separate entities, but they are interrelated and a lot of it will depend on how future shapes up. While a lot of people may be okay with just choosing the path of least resistance, it may not be the thing of interest to people with a strong conscience. Also choosing a path gets further complicated, when one knows that they dont have the support of their immediate family (of wife, parents, siblings). Do I want to take into account how my brother, parents, wife would behave to the same scenario. How much cost (Time, emotional, Money in the exact order of importance) am I willing to bear for such events?
Way forward
As I reflect on whom to chose & invest time and whom not to invest time and energy. This seems to be common though conundrum which i have to go through anytime there is a small/large gathering of people where my old adversaries are about to come or if they are hosting the functions. I m beginning to think maybe i need to settle down on a template for life. A new template which i can refer to anytime in future i end up facing this di-elemma. I tried discuss this with my wife from past 4 days and tried to explain my dielemma but she doesnt seem to give a damn about this. She seems busy in her own things with little to no interest and listening to whatever I had to say. So left to fend for myself, I m turning to do things that I know i.,e put down all the thoughts into a blog and help it become your guide. As it started thinking more, I narrowed down on two approaches.
Option 1 :
Attend functions of only the small set of close relationships and ignore all the rest.
Option 2
Attend all functions of every tom dick and harry as long as I/my parents get the invite without giving any further thought. Attend for the sake of building more people in our life.
Evaluate
Option 1: Attend functions of only the small set of close relationships and ignore all the rest.
Pros : a. Peace of mind in the form of not faking any relationship (while fully ackowledging that its a difficult thing to know who is faking or not OR even worse who wasnt faking before but have started faking now). b. Peace of mind in being only surrounded by only people with whom you can resonate at that point of time our lives. c. Less people, Less managing emotions, Less chaos. d. Construct a life by being surrounded with real people and real relationships.
Cons : Given that i dont have even a single person from my dads family and ever decreasing number of treacherous, selfish people from my Moms family there is a real possibility that in the future I and my kids may end up with very few people in our lives. This is especially important given that my wife is hell bent on showing off status, showing of the number of people in our lives to her relatives and feel the constant superiority at every stage of life. This may also weaken me and my position within my immediate family in the long term given that my kids may start wondering as to why there is no one in their paternal family who shares a warm relationship. Also my wife seems to be averse to this option for the reasons mentioned above.
Option 2: Attend all functions of every tom dick and harry as long as I/my parents get the invite without giving any further thought.
Pros : a. It gives an illusion of being surrounded by a lot of people all the time. b. Attending multiple functions, attending to more people will improve the general understanding of people c. Increased network of people. especially the people who arent extended family but may have done things which are worthy of learning. d. Social Status which we get by the virtue of knowing a lot of people. e. It is increasing becoming apparent to me what my brother, my father , mother and to an extent my wife is inclined to. They are all people who just wants to go along whereever the wind is blowing without giving a shit about history. Recency effect dominates. OR the assumed quid pro quo feelings OR the path of least resistance. So going against all my inner familys opinion to honor or act as per my conscience may have repercussions within my family life.
Cons : I may have to sacrifice my self respect and swallow a lot of hard feelings and try hard to forget all the misgivings, backstabbing, back bitching, and all the negativity people spread about my family. People will never be made answerable to all their past actions/behaviors. Everything..every insult will be brushed under the carpet. (under the garbage of "Need to move on with time"
Conclude :
Given the current circumstances, it seems I may be leaning towards Option 2. But let me revisit this a little later with more perspectives and offer a final conclusion.
