Cultivate many special relationships

Humans are social animals, we thrive in social environments. We love to live in groups, surrounded by those we form strong bonds with. We also look for someone to share our joy and happiness, that "special relationship." We often put so much expectation on that one "special relationship." Often, this special relationship is our romantic relationship and that person becomes a special person, and the entire burden of our expectations falls on that special person in our special relationship. We want that special person from our special relationship to laugh with us, laugh at our jokes, cry with us, understand us, have coffee, tea, or whatever other drink we like, agree with our social and political views, deal with our mood swings, and cheer us up whenever we are feeling down. But is it fair to place such high expectations on just one person to be our emotional support, confidante, motivator, and more?

Why limit ourselves to just one special relationship when we can have many? A special relationship with our mentors can provide valuable guidance for professional and personal growth. A special relationship with our friends who give us their time generously, create everlasting memories, and stand by us when we mess up. A special relationship with our buddies at the gym or our sports club who motivate us to push our physical limits. A special relationship in our neighborhood where we live and cultivate our home. A special relationship with our parents and siblings that are unique in their own dynamics and demands. The list can grow as each one of us may need our own set of special relationships depending on our personality and needs. 

Why do we put all the burden of "specialness" on just one relationship? While a romantic relationship holds a significant place in our lives, and we do expect a lot from this relationship. It is not wrong to expect something extra from our romantic relationship. Many expect their partners to be a therapist, great friends, motivators, pillars of support, and also ever-romantic and charming person. Is this even humanly possible? No, it's unrealistic to expect one person to fulfill every role. Our romantic relationship is special, our partner is a very special person in our life, romance has its own special place, but so are friendships, mentorships, social and work relationships, intellectual relationships, and other relationships that make our lives exciting and fulfilling. Other special relationships are just as important and contribute to a fulfilling life. Our friend that loves our gossip is a special relationship, the intellectual group where we discuss our ideas and evaluate policies is a special relationship, our relationship with our parents is special, and our relationship with whatever we enjoy, cinema, music, or any other art form, is also a special one. Each of these relationships has different dynamics and different requirements, cherish them all and value them all. Please don't put the burden of everything on just one relationship. Also, remember every relationship is a two-way process, you need to give as much as you take to nurture any relationship. One way relationships are exploitative and don't last long, and if they last at all, they become toxic. So, let's cherish and value all our special relationships and continually evaluate if they are meeting our personal needs. 

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com

Everyone is not born special, but we all can become special

The tagline "Everyone is special" sounds very good to hear. It is meant to be motivational and inspiring for all of us. This term is heavily overused, especially by motivational speakers who use this a lot. But is it really inspiring? Or it is very confusing or even misleading? Many speakers who use this term want to make people feel good, they want their audience to think that every one of them is equipped with special qualities and they should feel very proud about it. Actually, if we use the biological criteria, we all are unique, our fingerprints are different, we have different retina patterns, and everyone's genome is unique. So, in many ways, we all are unique and special but that is not what this "special" means. It hints that we all have some special talent or quality that makes each one of us a uniquely gifted person. I think this is not entirely true. Such statements sound very sweet and are made with extremely good intentions to motivate us or to make us feel better, but I feel many times they are misleading.

Many of us fail to acquire any noticeable special talent when we complete our education. We acquire some professional degree or certificate, but not each one of us can claim that we are specially gifted in that area. We can list various reasons for this, we can even blame the school system for not providing a very conducive environment to spot and groom any such special talent and this is what happens with most of us. Actually, very few people are born with some unique talent. Very few of us can understand very early in life about our special talent, if we have any. It is not easy for many of us to figure out our true interests and start working passionately towards some definite goal very early in our lives. Not everyone can become a dancer and singer like Michael Jackson, a basketball player like Michael Jordon, a cricketer like Sachin Tendulkar, or a singer like Lata Mangeshkar or Elvis Presley. There are very few people like them who realize very early in their life about the mission of their life and work tirelessly towards it. Most of us struggle to find the actual area of interest where we can utilize our skills. Many of us struggle even to realize what type of unique skills we have. For most of us, it is a very long journey to figure out the area where we can excel. Our education system, society, and many times our parents make us fit into various stereotypes and try to guide us to what they think is good and proper for us. This leaves most of us thinking about various options at various stages of our lives. Some of us might think being a doctor is a great idea just because our parents are very successful doctors. Some of us might think being a lawyer or an engineer or an actor or politician is a great option without even evaluating whether we possess all the required set of qualities to be successful in that profession. I strongly believe that no matter what area or profession we choose, we can become successful in that area by working hard. It requires lots of hard work, patience, and practice to achieve success in any field unless you have some legacy advantage. Even all so-called naturally gifted people from every field practice hard and go through rigorous training to achieve phenomenal success in their respective fields.  Malcolm Gladwell has written about this phenomenon very nicely in his book 'Outliers', the chapter about the '10,000-hour rule' is a very interesting read, he has tried to explain the importance of practice to master any technique or talent we want to acquire.

I believe that even though we all are not born special, each one of us can become special through our hard work and perseverance. We all can acquire greatness, it is not a gift or genetic trait that we either possess or don't possess but it is an achievable thing. Just by thinking we are special, we might feel good about ourselves, but to achieve it we need to work hard. Even a natural gift or a talent without proper practice and hard training can only help to a limited extent. We need to put a lot of effort into achieving our dreams. Let's work hard to achieve that specialness. We may not be special today but definitely, every one of us can become special through our hard work and perseverance. 

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]