Festivities Is The Best Season To Rethink Broken Ties
Don’t forsake your family
Loneliness is society’s slow poison.
Multiple studies have proved that family estrangement is increasing in countries across the globe.
The movie Nomadland gave us a glimpse of living a lonely life.
What’s good for you and what’s not is your choice. But what’s right is non-debatable. Conflicts and mismatching opinions are common household phenomena, but estrangement is not the true nature of humans. Humans have lived in groups. So, anything against our innate nature is toxic to our mental health.
When it comes to estrangement, many a time, the problem is always about the extremes of differences — opinions/standpoints/values/lifestyle. It’s then the responsibility of the matured member to find a way to resolve the extremes.
Before taking extreme steps at least try alternate ways to resolve the differences. Say you can try shifting to another home or try talking with your friends and theirs’ too.
When I was living a solitary life, I felt a deep sense that I need someone to talk to. I was young then, but imagine what could be the condition of the aged who have no one of their blood to express what they feel.
When I was living as a tenant, the granny, used to share her story of her departed sons — The sons who never visit her. She remorsed about her loneliness. As we age, we become more empathetic about everything. All our ego and arrogance melts. Harshness breaks down, and there is a new outlook towards life. It is the difference of age that makes all the difference.
More than anything else, the reason for estrangement has something to do with choice.
Choice-A Luxury Of Modern World
Family estrangement is not a new thing. It has happened throughout history. In the modern world, with an individualistic way of thinking, the number of estrangements has gone up.
The evil-doer here could be a choice.
Choices can make humans indecisive and intolerant.
If I give you too many options, you will get confused about the choice.
Remember the jam experiment? People are more likely to purchase if they are given limited options. That’s the reason why subscription websites display only 3 options to choose from!
Too many choices can cause you choice paralysis.
But what this has to do with estrangement?
When young adults have more choices to live the way they wish to live, they might end up making poor decisions.
Financial independence fuels up the problem. The more financially free an individual is, the more individualistic he becomes.
He thinks — why should I compromise my life?
None of the above is a problem till the situation reaches extremity. Extremity reaches when both the conflicting have multiple choices at the time of rage — the ‘I don’t need you’ case.
Let’s Talk About Need
Families are attached because they share responsibilities. Each individual fulfills their duty by taking care of the specific needs of other family members. Need come up when there is a dependence on resources. This need can be physical and metaphysical. For example, the need of being loved by someone.
A poor young child might not estrange his parents as he has no choice to leave home.
At a point, he might adjust to other things like abuse but keep living with the family.
The upside of this case is that his adjustment potential might rise, making him a tolerant person. In such cases, even if he stays with his toxic family, his chances of slow poisoning are far lesser than that of an estranged individual.
Extremities are toxic. Instead, achieve Aristotle’s Golden Mean.
What Brings Families Together
A probable cause of estrangement can be an intolerant attitude.
Intolerance is an outcome of individualistic freedom.
The more me-time a person has, the more self-centered he becomes. This self-centeredness is different than self-care.
Self-centered individuals are an outcome of excess individual freedom from an early age. Separate room from early childhood is one such case. This makes a child feel vague about shareable things like eating together, using the same set of accessories, etc.
If parents foster sharing and caring attitude within their children, they can reduce their chances of separation in adulthood.
A psychological fact suggests, eating at a fight scene might stop their fight.
The human brain works in patterns. It associates events. Eating has never been associated with fighting, so eating at a fight scene might end the fight scene.
On similar grounds, family ties are strengthened more on festivities. So if you’ve broken your ties with dear ones, new year’s eve is the best time to reconcile.
Have you thought of taking the first step?
To err is to human; to forgive, divine
— Alexander Pope