It's Not What You Used to Do, But the People You Used to Do It With
You have been through many experiences, some good and others not so good. You will continue living through new experiences which will leave their mark on you. And when you look back, you will remember. However, what will you focus on when you look back on your past? It won’t be on your personal success. The bad days and failures will be the sole protagonists. The main focus won’t be what you have achieved, but the people you shared these achievements with.
The best and the worst moments in our lives are always determined by people.
A lot of these situations, both the positive and negative ones, which you remember now as if they were stories, have people as their main characters. People who have marked you. People who have inspired you. Even people who have hurt you.
Connecting with other people is very important for us. From childhood, these relationships mark us. Let’s think about our parents for a moment, about how they become fundamental pillars and helped us take our first steps, both literally and metaphorically. Thanks to them, we learn a lot of things about the art of living.
However, our progenitors soon start to be left behind due to the arrival of new friends and partners. That new world in which we have to deal with people who do not form a part of our family. Though, on some occasions, we will consider them as such. Many of them will disappoint us. Yet, we will trust others and end up suffering. And with several others, we will discover the meaning of the word “happiness”. All of these people will help us learn about bonding.
Bonding, an everyday task
“Although we spend much of our time and effort focused on personal achievements such as our careers. The events that end up being most important in our lives, the events that bring us the most happiness and also carry the most potential for pain are social events, moments during which we feel connected to others.”
-Shira Gabriel
This might happen because we are social beings. We feel the need to communicate with others, to feel that we form part of a group…This makes it essential for us to connect with someone, so that we can feel good. When this doesn’t happen we feel sad, because negative feelings and emotions bloom inside of us. Having reached this point, it is only logical that when you turn around to observe what you have already experienced, what comes to mind is not the what, but who you were with.
If people are that important to us, it’s normal that not sharing our achievements and goals, our own joy, will make us incapable of being happy. This will explain why many individuals that have reached success or any other objective that has made them triumph, still don’t perceive themselves as complete.