We look to get affirmation from others because we want to feel special and important. We want others to make us feel valued. What other people think of us matter. I know I struggle with this, because I care maybe too much. Always wondering what other people think of me, always trying to make a good impression. And I know I judge people all the time. We all want to be accepted. This is why we construct different identities for ourselves and play these different roles with the people in our lives.
We depend on the relationships we have with others. Depending on our needs and motivations we decide which relationships are more important than others, which relationships we can do without and those we can’t live without. I feel like we put people into different categories depending on whom they are and measure their value to us and our lives. I can read people pretty well which allows me to put them in different categories and that’s how I decide how I’m going to interact with them. Depending on who they are and what category they fall in I decide if we’ll be friends or not, if I like them or not, if they’re good people or bad people, etc. The relationships I have in my life with various people all matter to me in some way and I depend on them to fulfill my needs and motivations.
Relationships to us matter because they add meaning and a sense of belonging to our lives. Our families for example provide us with love and support and they make us feel safe. Our parents value us and think we are special people. We feel like we each have a place in our family. We depend on them. Our families provide us with a security blanket. Like we know or would like to believe that they will be there to help and protect us throughout our lives. We need our families and in return we try to provide our families with the same love and respect they give us. Which is why many people love their families (parents, siblings, grandparents, etc) more than any other relationships. Family comes first for some; I know that is true for me. Our families are the foundation of our upbringing and who we are. They were the first people we learned how to treat, respect, love, and care about.
With friends we are free to let our guards down and just be ourselves. There is no acting or playing different roles with them. They accept us for who we are and like us for that. I feel like there is no pressure to impress friends like there might be for the other relationships we have. We also form some of our ideas on how to live our lives and ethics on how to treat people from our friends. Every relationship influences us.
I believe we all learn and grow from our relationships. I know that many of the relationships I have with people in my life, teach me a lot about myself and how I should treat and interact with people, but also how I should live my live. For example our families are the core of our beliefs and ethics on life, for example many people follow a certain religion because their families do. I pull from the many relationships I have on how I choose to live my life. I think we all do in some way.
Life is all about the relationships we have with people. We depend on these relationships. We function because of these relationships. Society is one big relationship between people. In a society everyone is trying to maintain a functioning relationship. The question is how to make that relationship better?
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