Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Get By With A Little Help!

FOR THE WEEK BEGINNING APRIL 9, 2007

INSPIRATION FOR TODAY:
"The bird a nest
the spider a web
the human friendship."
~ William Blake

DON'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT!

Dial up. Plug in. Voice mail. Email. Text messaging. So much communication, yet so little connection. The American Sociological Review reports that we have half as many close confidants as we did only twenty years ago. How is that we're so "in touch" and yet more out of touch than ever before?

A lot of it has to do with how much time we spend working away from home. More time spent on work and the commute leaves less time for fostering friendships in the traditional ways - neighborhoods, volunteering and religious organizations.
Our world is so much larger now that we're losing our ability to build close bonds with others. We need to remember the environmentalist mantra to "think globally, act locally." Chatting via computer is not an evil thing in and of itself, but the Internet is beginning to replace our face-to-face "in the flesh" relationships. While improving the social lives of the sometimes more isolated elderly and disabled, where does that leave the rest of us?

Our closest friends are the ones we count on for support and development, for everyday problems and real emergencies. Next time you're sick, try emailing a friend across country for a bowl of chicken soup!

Seek out and connect with others where you are most likely to find them: exercise classes, community education courses, sporting fields, dog parks, churches, synagogues or mosques, just to name a few.

We need to prioritize our relationships outside our nuclear families. It might take a bit of work to make and keep those friendships, but the benefits make it well worth your effort. Research has proven that people with very close friends stay healthier, live longer, enjoy more success, and avoid the psychiatrist's couch. Oddly enough, the solution to isolation might just be to stay closer to home!

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posted by The Office Grapevine at 11:20 PM  

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