Recently, I have been thinking about the way we, as humans, view relationships. In the average human's mind, being in a relationship and being in love is seen as ultimate happiness; the highest achievable goal and accomplishment possible. In our minds, we view people in relationships to be on another level of happiness, and those who are single are seen as sadder or more lonely than those in love. This is a bit of a generalization, but seeing this thought process got me to thinking: as humans, do we view being in a relationship/in love as the ultimate happiness and something we should strive for because society tells us we should, or do we view it as such because as human beings, we are programmed to feel our happiest and function best in a relationship?
I have been asking my friends and family this question quite recently, and almost everyone says it is a mixture, but tends to lean one way or the other. This is quite impossible to know for certain, but I also think that it is a mixture of both, but lean more towards society. Thinking of just the friendships I have in my life now, I know that they make me happier than I would be if I did not have these relationships in my life. Humans do thrive by being around others. This leads me to believe that we do need some sort of companionship, whether it be romantic or not. Being alone without human contact for a week would make me sad, so I personally find happiness in my relationships with the people in my life. Consequently, if I had continual human contact for a week without alone time, that would also make me sad. Overall, though, I think that any sort of human relationship brings us happiness, and it does not have to be a romantic one.
On the other hand, society stresses so much what being in a relationship is like that it slightly skews what the source of being happy can be. One of my friends pointed out that on sitcoms or in movies, the people who are in relationships are often presented with their lives in check and seem happy, while single people are often presented as unsure of their futures and scatter brained or sad. This makes the viewer think they need to be in a relationship to be happy. Assuming you will get married and have children is another societal implication. Growing up, almost every person you are around casually speaks about what they'll do when they're married, or when they have kids. We truly have no right to assume that. Who knows if we will all get married some day? Even if you do get married, who knows if you will have children? We so quickly assume that this will be our future because that is what everyone else does. It is what society teaches us to be the norm, and the way to being a happy American family. This does make me wonder: if we did not feel pressure to get married, would we naturally gravitate towards that anyhow?
There is no way to know for certain if you will or will not get married, or if the longing for that is societal or not, but that should not dictate your happiness. I by no means want to depress anyone or make you feel sad about being alone. This post is a little more intense than most of the other stuff I blog about, but it is something that I've been asking people about, so I thought, why not blog about it?
Please comment and let me know what you think! It is quite interesting to hear everyone's take on the situation.
Have a great weekend and thanks for reading :)
Think about this:
ReplyDeleteI was going through some random Wikipedia entries in order to get ready for a class this past semester (slackin' off like usual) when I dawned upon something. I got to a page about a past vice president who had met his wife in law school. They met, they dated, they got married, and then they became one of the most influential couples of the free world.
You know what that means? That means that the two of them -- ever since elementary school -- had put time into getting good grades, meeting expectations, finishing projects late into the night or early into the morning, applying for colleges, working a few jobs, and made enough money to get to law school where they met their life partner.
If you ever gets married, think about how much time was put into your life and into your achievements and into schooling and into writing this blog that would someday morph the timeline of your life so that you would get to the point where you meet that guy (or girl).
And that guy or girl would have worked just as long, just as hard, just as rigorously for their entire LIFETIME (!!!) to get to the point where you guys meet. They worked sleepless nights to get to the same college. They understand the pain and frustrations and enjoyed the fruits of their labor in the same way you did.
I'm not saying that the time you put into schooling and excelling academically or artistically is only to find a wife or a husband -- oh no, not at all -- it's just that the present time value of the effort you had poured into your WHOLE LIFE got you to the point where you met your partner.
And the same for them to where they met you.
That adds value to a relationship! Holy crap that adds so much value! Thousands of hours combined!
Every decision you make is going to change the outcome of the future, who knows who's going to pop up because of that extra hour you studied, or who knows what job you're going to get because of that email you decided to send, or who knows who you'll meet because you decided to sleep instead of studying a few more hours on your econ final, making you have to take the class again with a whole new set of classmates.
It's crazy. Just crazy.
I appreciate what you wrote Bekah, this was good!
- Henry
Ahaha, and don't mind the scattered typos, typing on my phone isn't exactly my forte.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your reply Henry! Interesting stuff to think about, for sure. It's all crazy and weird to think about.
DeleteSo philisophical! Miss you Bekah.
ReplyDeleteThanks girl! Miss you too! Have a rockin' summer!
Delete