What makes you happy? The cliché answer people love to trot out is family and friends, but when you think about it, they are also the people who hurt you the most? You invest lots in these relationships, only for silly little things to get in the way and spoil them. Why, because we hoist our own relationship rules onto them, and as a result they end up letting us down.

You may wonder why I am writing about this, who has upset you this time Modha? But there isn’t a specific reason. More a general feeling that has come about from seeing how people I know interact with their families and friends.

To quote Lionel Ritchie, I’m easy like Sunday morning, and often I consciously avoid relying on others to make me happy. That is opening yourself up to being let down in my opinion. Sure, I like seeing my friends and my family, but more important than all that is that they are happy. If that is the case, I don’t really need to see them at all. I can maintain that relationship over the phone. That might come across as sad, but I think I get that from my dad. I know a lot of people who need people to be around them, but I actually don’t mind spending time on my own. I imagine when I finally get round to starting a family, I will have to change that, because being alone is a commodity in rare supply after that event. But until that point, I am happy in my bubble.

Confession time, I used to be an incredible bailer. I would often agree to do stuff, only to have a change of heart near the event and bail. I don’t know why, but I did. My friends got increasingly annoyed by this and so confronted me about this crappy habit. I vowed to change my ways. But before I could do that, I had to figure out why I did this? Why would I say I was willing to go to something, which deep down I really didn’t want to? It was to appease people. Make them think that I wanted to see them at every given opportunity. No one really wants that, and so now I say no. Initially I said no way to often, to the point where people said I never saw them. Which also wasn’t good. I argued that I wasn’t letting them down anymore, but now I was letting them down in another way.

See how complicated it can be to have all these relationships with people!

So I ask you, think of the key relationships you have, it might be with your parents, your partner, it could be any one, and look at how much you invest in those versus everyone else. I suppose there is an innate hierarchy in life. When (if at this bloody rate!)  I am married, that person will automatically become the be all, and end all of my life. Other relationships will suffer as a result, but that is natural. Then, if we have children, they will be my brand new, number 1 person in the world. Sorry wife, thems is the rules. This means falling down the league table for my mum, dad, sister, brother in law and even my nephew. So it goes.

That doesn’t mean I don’t love them, or love them any less, just that my relationship with them has changed as other things have come up that have taken priority. This doesn’t just happen to young people, as their lives mature, but oldies as well. Grandkids replace their own children as apples of grandparents eyes. Why? I don’t bloody know, I am not a granddad. When kids go away from the nest to University, ties are cut. When they get married, distance is formed. You have a new life, the olds can step away like they are at the edge of a cliff, weight on the back foot.  

I think we forget the benefits of our friends and family when we argue with them. We forget why we care about them. Sure they can be bailing douche bags like me, or they can be the people who hurt you most, but at the end of the day, when the proverbial hits the fan, you know they will be there in a heartbeat. It can be hard to see that, close to the annoyance event horizon, but distance and time always enable us to be a bit less rash as a result. Maybe it is worth giving that person a call and reminding yourself why you cared in the first place.

- Anand