When Agustun Fuentes remarked that you are who you meet, Gandhi flashed across my mind. If Gandhi had not met the racist conductor who threw him away at the Pietermaritzburg station then Indian if not the world history would have been different because it reinforced his spirit to fight against the evil English empire.
We shape society is a fact we all know but we don’t realize is that society too shapes us. That’s why the old African proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child. All the teachers, friends, peers, co-workers, priests, and everyone in your vicinity make us the person we are. In other words, If we can map out all the people you met since childhood and flip them with someone else then you become a new you.
People say casually that you are the average of five people you surround yourself with. However, the fact is you become the average of all the people you meet from your womb to the tomb. Our perception of ourselves and the world then is a product of all the relationships we had and we will have in the future.
Relationship
If your friend calls you stupid, most probably you shrug it off or say something even more stupid depending on your mood and energy at that moment. However, your shoulders and a big heart cannot tolerate if some stranger calls you that especially when he cuts you off on a highway.
I think based on our relationship with the speaker we determine what kind of meaning and emotional weight words have. For instance, when relatives or family members say even something very trivial we get hurt and decide to abandon them but if the same is done by our partner, we think about how cute those words are. Or if it is by our brother or sister then in fact we take delight in those insensitive words.
So, what we want to take from words and to what extent should we get affected is based on our relationships with the talker.
Distance
Closeness is always dangerous and threatening for people. The fantasies, mirages, and appearances that they created will falter and break away when there is less gap. That’s why we are scared of love and avoid intimacy with friends and partners. And being distant from everybody, for this reason, calls for an inauthentic living, lies, and fake lifestyles. This eventually creates a distance within yourself with yourself and alienates you from a sense of purpose and meaning in life. Being tightly knitted is chilling but it is honest and perhaps simple.
Giver and taker
Be both in relationships. Don’t always give or receive. When you always give you get a feeling of pride
or start to see the other person as unequal or stop learning from them. Likewise, when you always receive
you feel entitled or don’t make any effort to bring value into their lives which again hurts the relationship.
Switch freely across the spectrum without any inhibitions.
Thy Vox 