2011 - What I've Learned - Lesson #1

Aloha all!

In addition to my monthly challenge - I'll be posting a reflection about 2011.  I've had the great opportunity to just attend school and focus on life.  Basically, not working and trying to figure out life.

Time does fly back fast, doesn't it?

A full year without working... wow... finally time to integrate back into the workforce.  So... after a whole year of not-working... I must have learned a couple of things, right?

Lesson #1 - Your current relationships will not change.

I had this notion that taking a year off would further solidify my relationships with people but actually having more time made me realize that is truly not the case.  To place this in theoretical context, the degree of relationship you have with an individual - is based on the time that you can invest on that individual - which does not correlate to the amount of time that other individual has.  An example, if the other person suddenly has all the free time in the world - that doesn't change the fact that you have your own priorities and therefore have more time to spend with an individual - you will have the same amount of time.  Moral of the story - if people don't call you when you're busy - they're not going to call you when you have more time.  If you're the one that did all the calling - you're still the one that's going to do all the calling.  If you always visited someone - yup... the cycle continues.

While others may not have more time to spend with me, my free time has allowed for new friendships to develop - and not just so called friends - actual friends.  I think I am a great judge of character and I am lucky to have maintained the friendships I have and also make new friends along the way.

On the other spectrum, this is why I consider "social networking" like Facebook is a facade - for some relationships it creates a "false consciousness" that a deeper relationship exists.  Facebook is merely a mechanism to expend the minimum amount of time to maintain these relationships.  Don't get me wrong - this is great for networking and maintaining relationships you probably would not spend the upkeep otherwise.  This is not to discount that level of relationships are stagnant, on the contrary, it is quite fluid.  If you receive some positive aspect of a relationship via any medium - you will be more apt to spend more time with that person.  With that said - time and social mediums do not mix.  Think about it, a friend you communicate with on Facebook wants to come visit and spend two weeks with you - if you only spend time communicating on Facebook the sudden shift in "time allotment" will increase dramatically and actually puts your relationship in a power imbalance.  Will you take 2 weeks off to spend time with this friend? You may or may not - what I am merely trying to illustrate is that you will spend the amount of time gauging in correlation to the depth of your friendship.  (PROBABLY NOT!)

Check your cell phone and your outgoing calls - that who/what is important to you, whether it is work, friends, BF, family, etc.  If you feel like something is out of balance - maybe this is a good time to analyze what is important to you and create a time chart that is consistent.  We can see this in long-distance relationships - though individuals are far away they spend time utilizing other methods of communication because they are not physically able to.

A counter argument may imply that our methods of communication change with technology and that we adapt to the technology available to us - and those that are utilized within our communication circle. This is a valid point - however - you will still spend more time with those individuals you put on a pedestal.

Next week - Lesson 2.


Mahalo for reading.

Until next time.