Remembering to Cherish the Ones We Love
Life is stressful. Life is hectic. Life is crazy, confusing, busy, non-stop, always going, always changing, often difficult, rarely easy.
Pick up the kids. Finish that big project at work. Pay your bills. Run an errand on your lunch break. It doesn’t seem to end, does it? But this trap of living that so many of us fall into – where we can’t find a second to remember what’s really important – can be reversed, with a little thought, care and effort.
Our next blog post will be about helping strangers, but today the focus is on what you can do to strengthen your interpersonal relationships with everyone from your closest friend to an old acquaintance.
So if you’re malnourished when it comes to food for the soul, read on and pick up 10 tips on connecting with the most important people in your life. These are acts of kindness, both big and small, that will brighten the galaxies of those around you.
- Write a sincere, heartfelt letter to your significant other. Sure, you kiss them goodbye every morning and say “I love you”, and while you mean it each and every time it’s easy to forget the feeling behind those daily spoken words. Take an hour, sit down and profess your affection, in detail, to your loved one. Bring up forgotten memories. Remind them you still feel all the same things you did when you first fell in love. Extol all of the virtues that make that person so special to you. Your relationship, and correspondingly your happiness, will reap the benefits.
- This one goes more for guys, in the name of classic chivalry, but ladies take the initiative if you so please! Make your significant other believe that you’re exhausted from the work week and you just want a quiet Friday night at home, then show up fully dressed with a full night mapped out. Rest assured they will love the surprise and thoughtfulness, and they won’t even mind having to get ready on short notice. Roll out the red carpet for this one: romantic dinner, maybe a sweet little gift, candles…the works. You will thank yourself for making the one you love feel loved, and he/she will reciprocate down the road.
- Cherish your elders. Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa…it’s a cliché, but a true one: they won’t be here forever. One day you will look back and ache for one hour more with the people who raised you. So yes, a night out with friends may be more stimulating on the surface than plopping down next to your grandfather to watch Wheel of Fortune, but those tiny moments are the ones you’ll want when you get older. Same goes for your parents: answer the phone every time they call. Tell them you love them. Be interested in what’s going on in their lives. And when you’re with them, stop and take a long, appreciative look. Hopefully you have many more happy years together but still, enjoy every second!
- Patch things up with someone who has wronged you, or better yet, someone you have wronged. Life inevitably has its rifts, but you can break the cycle. You can use your imagination with this one: say, you bullied someone in fifth grade and you feel bad about it to this day. Find them on Facebook, and say you’re sorry! Even if they don’t remember the incident in question, they will most likely appreciate the gesture and you’ll have one less regret.
- Get all of your old friends together for a reunion. This could apply to your buddies from grade school, your high school crew, or your drinking buddies from college. They say two things are sure in life, dying and paying taxes, but you could add growing apart from friends to that list. Even though many lucky people maintain a few dear friends from their younger years it’s next to impossible to maintain large scale group cohesion as people get married, move away, etc. Why not task yourself with getting as many people as possible back together for one big outing? This will require a lot of planning around people’s schedules, but it can be done.
- Speaking of those close friends – do you have that one, true, best friend? The one you would call if you had to be bailed out of jail three states away? The one who knows the most horrifying details of your personal life? That person who knows enough about you to ruin your life, only you know they never would? Say a heartfelt thanks to them, and do it in a way you know they would uniquely appreciate. The concept of best friends implies a certain level of intimate knowledge, so you should know what will strike a chord with them. With all the chop-busting that goes on between close friends sometimes the true depth of your relationship goes unacknowledged. Acknowledge it. You’re lucky to have each other.
- Maybe you like your job. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you fall somewhere in the middle. At any rate, work generally falls under the category of monotony, and that probably goes for you and your co-workers. Why not pick one day to be the most popular person in your office? Surprise everyone with a smorgasbord of treats one morning. Stop at Dunkin Donuts and pick up some munchkins – who doesn’t love munchkins? – and coffee. Throw in a basket of mini-muffins. Or if you want to go the lunch-time route, surprise-order pizza for you and your colleagues. Remember, nothing makes people happier than free food. And we mean nothing.
- Is there a new adult member of your family? Maybe your sister just got married, or your brother has a new girlfriend with whom he’s getting serious. Whoever it is, go out of your way to make that person feel welcomed, in any small way possible! Drop a nice note on their Facebook wall, or send a message inviting them to dinner, whatever you think will establish a genuine connection. It’s not easy being the new person around, and they will greatly appreciate you reaching out. Bonus points here: you will then always be their favorite in the family.
- Illustrate to an old teacher the positive affect they had on your life. Between the sometimes lousy pay, bratty kids, long hours grading papers and ungrateful parents, the life of an educator can be a thankless one. That can be changed if a teacher sees living proof that they made a real impact! So send them a thank you letter printed on the stationary of the dream job they inspired you to get, acknowledging that teacher’s role in shaping you. Or drop by their classroom with a personalized gift for their desk. Everyone is so busy sometimes that no one feels appreciated for what they do. Help change that.
- Finally, a general rule: always be quick to personally contact a friend or family member on an occasion, achievement or milestone. If an old friend from college posts on Facebook that they got a job, go the extra mile and send them a personal congratulatory text. Call those close to you on their birthdays, rather than leaving a generic wall post. If someone is undergoing surgery or battling an illness, reach out and make sure they know you are thinking about them. Any little gesture means something.
There you have it. Most of these are obvious suggestions that can easily slip through the cracks if you allow yourself to get too caught up in your frenetic life, so don’t forget to be grateful and appreciative of the support system you have, and never take for granted the people around you!
