We may INHERIT relations more than what we BUILD during our lives. But creating BOND in those relations is our effort. We all are born different. We have different interests and dreams and it’s not that we will meet only those who have similar interests and dreams in our lives. We learn and build relations across our life span. We were born and reared to know our parents and siblings as a brother or a sister. The special treatment we received on first day at school was by our teacher. The first and subsequent lunch boxes we shared with were our friends. We get married to have a life partner and have children to be a parent. We worked hard for a company and have a boss. We share a journey with an unknown- most of them forgotten and some remembered.
We may not live as long as the other or be with each of our relations forever. We will of course die before our kids and after our parents. We will have fights with our life partner, disagreements with our, friends and siblings. We will change jobs and professions. Despite all of this, we will create a bond (defined as a close personal relationship) across each of our relation- some strong to last a lifetime and some briefly. Infact knowingly or unknowingly, all our actions in our lives are towards building or confirming our bond to each or few select relations of ours.
When I dated my wife 14 years back, some of our actions were to strengthen our relation. We tried to exchange letters we wrote when away. We exchanged descriptive greeting cards to share our feelings. I bought a Bar-one (candy bar) without a miss for her when we met. We exchanged rings – symbolic of getting engaged, visited a temple every time we met. Further, we committed ourselves into a marriage but continued to live apart from each other in hope of getting consent of our parents.
In our life on a daily basis, we act to create a bond with all of our relations including our pet and of course our boss. Sharing a dish during lunch, munching from the same plate, office tea breaks, surprise visit to hometown to meet ailing parents/relatives, surprise bouquet for your partner, thanking a friend discreetly using a blog, unscheduled outing to your pet, dropping your kids to school rather than let them use the school bus or submitting a report your boss never expected you to send on a Sunday. All these actions are in a way, a bond we create that nurture our relations further.
Quoting from my friend’s thoughts on his 29th marriage anniversary, “For Better or for worse has different meaning NOW, than it did to two 25 year old years back.” His expression is an acknowledgement of the bond he created with his partner. Irrespective of the fights, disagreements, separations, different preferences and habits all did not matter till they intent was to remain connected.
Emotional bond can be created by doing some things regularly for each of our relations and it grows slowly, quietly and often unknowingly. We should not worry whether they impact us. We will for sure have incidents in our life when we will get to acknowledge each of our relation- courtesy emotional bonds that have been built over the years.
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