Social Relations – Embrace them or Avoid them?

Man is a social animal. Research shows that well-being of a man is dependent on his social circle. At the same time, another research shows that being dependent on others is not a trait of mentally strong people. Are they conflicting?

Well-being of a person depends on healthy relations he maintains. If there are toxic people around you, they drain out your happiness irrespective of how positive you try to be. I had friends who used to contact me only when they had problems. I used to make their problems mine and find solutions for them. But they would not implement them and come back to me again to only complain. People find comfort in complaining. For them friendship is only for complaining. When I started logging the days I broke down or was feeling low, it was because of the toxic people in my life. So I started avoiding those who drain my energy. I just did whatever I could for them instead of taking things to heart. But what if you felt hurt by everyone?

If you are right now in a stage where you feel that everyone out there exists only to hurt you, you must be suffering from low self-esteem which might have been the result of continuous rejections and loneliness. The glasses through which you are looking at the world might have been tinted with negativity. Don’t worry! It is never too late to change, you can do a few exercises to get back to healthy well-being.

Research shows that people are more trustworthy than we perceive their trustworthiness as. Take a chance and trust them. If they are trustworthy, you will get a trustworthy friend for a lifetime. If they are not, you can tell them how you trusted them so that from next time they might be more trustworthy. In either case you nothing much to lose. If you don’t take that chance, you will never be able to build a relationship.

By being vulnerable, you will be giving the control of your happiness to the other person. You need to just concentrate on adding value to their life. It has got nothing to do with vulnerability.

You need not necessarily have common interests. You can still be friends and respect and accept them for who they are and not on what you expect them to be.

Friendship or social relations is not about how much you are getting out of the relation. It is about finding happiness in giving. Your mother does so much for you. She doesn’t do it with an expectation that some day you are going to do something for her. She just does it out of love. She gives more than what she takes. She is just happy seeing you succeed.

I came across this term on a course on happiness (A life of happiness and fulfillment).  Altruism, in general, is just about giving. You might give some money to a beggar and it counts as altruism. But creative altruism is about giving it to someone who need not necessarily requires what you are giving. You need to just surprise them.

One day, my colleagues were busy and could not take time off for a break. Even though I was busy, I could finish my work earlier than them. Since it was festival time, I bought sweets for them. They were more than happy as they were hungry and got something tasty to eat. There was a transformation in their behaviour post that incident. You can also try some experiment like this once in a while.

Identify your negative thoughts as soon as they pop up and change them to positive.

Thought 1: My friends did not invite me for lunch.

Thought 2: I informed my friends last week about my new project. They were considerate enough to not disturb me.

Don’t try to verify if the second thought. But just believe it. Change your thoughts, change your life.

Happy developing relations !