50 Years of Living - 1 Great Lesson
Its all about relationships
Prelude
It was mid January, the weekend after my 50th birthday. We were getting ready to go out, I assumed for dinner or maybe the cinema, my wife wouldn’t tell me as she likes to keep me in suspense.
We were chatting on the bus and missed our stop, ended up having to get another bus back to … wherever is was that we were meant to be going.
Standing on a street corner outside a pub in North London, The Angel, she decided to go in. This was very unusual, in all the time we have been together we have never been to a pub. My wife doesn’t drink and I rarely drink myself. I assumed we were lost and looking for directions.
The pub was exactly what you would expect, pleasant enough, dark, the smell of beer, loud music, and casually dressed strangers. Yet here we were, smartly dressed non drinkers that usually go to quiet restaurants.
She headed towards the stairs at the back, “maybe she needs the toilet” I thought to myself. I followed her to the dark wooden staircase leading upstairs, no sign for a toilet, maybe this was one of those gourmet pubs with an upstairs restaurant? Halfway up the stairwell I noticed a sign on the wall, a single sheet of white paper saying saying, “closed for private hire”.
Then it dawned on me, a surprise party, I couldn’t believe it, I’d never attended one before, let alone had one thrown for me! The surprise had been sprung a little too early but that didn’t matter in the slightest.
As we rounded the top of the stairs I found a room full of laughing, cheering and smiling faces. Family, friends, people I hadn’t seen in a long time, a few I didn’t know (partners and significant others that I had never met). There were decorations everywhere, wine, food, and a bar (of course)!
Clone Me For Love’s Sake
It was a whirlwind of hugs, kisses, and happy birthdays. The only day in my life that compared to this was our wedding, but today was about me and only me. I didn’t know how to deal with it.
If I could have cloned myself I would have, just to be with everyone all at once.
As the minutes turned into hours the feeling of love grew. It began to dawn on me that my family and friends really loved me in a way that I have never acknowledged. I began to appreciate them, and myself, in a way that I have never experienced.
This was the feeling of connection and belonging that I have always sought. It had been there and I had never seen it. I have my amazing wife to thank for this. Her effort to bring everyone together has transformed the way I see myself and my relationships. She knew this way before I did and realised what I needed.
It’s All About Relationship
When I started 150 Dunbar Street my goal was to document a journey. A journey to discover how to better live in an exponentially connected world. A world where despite it’s hyper-connected nature people feel increasingly anxious and isolated.
The answer is relationships.
Relationship is derived from the Latin word "relatio," which means "connection" or "relation."
Relate: mid 16th century: from Latin relat- ‘brought back’, from the verb referre
Relationship brings us back to connection with others because we are intrinsically networked social beings.
Biologically we are a human wi-fi network, enacted through mirror-neurons and a touch-based bonding mechanism.
Socially we are nodes in networks, at different scales and with different functions. Family, friends, social, intellectual, spiritual, political, economical, and ecological. These networks are connected to each other in different ways.
The quality of those connections is vital to the overall health of us all. Our collective health is impossible to separate from our individual health. The narrative of human history is written by our participation.
Cognitively we function as networks, distributed cognition is evidence of this. If you want to test this here is a simple game which will prove it.
Spiritually we are part of a whole, a universe, a divine network.
Connections, connections, connections … it all comes back to relationships.
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao-Tzu
50 Years of Living - 1 Great Lesson
Since that day I have grown as a human being, my confidence has grown, my sense of belonging has grown, my compassion has grown. I even feel safer in the world!
At the same time my anxiety has fallen, my stress levels have dropped, I feel more connected than ever before.
So here it is, the one great lesson that took me 50 years to learn. The day that opened my eyes like no other before.
Relationship is the connective tissue that forms the great human network.
When it comes to matters of the heart and soul, it is all about relationship.
Our pain is relational; guilt, shame, anxiety, fear, anger, depression, and suffering in relation to …?
The wounds that cause our pain are relational; someone let me down, hurt my feelings, broke my heart, neglected, abandoned, or abused me.
Equally all healing occurs through relationship. Through patience, love, empathy, and kindness.
Our bodies heal through the creation of living tissue. Our hearts and souls through living relationships.
Mankind truly is an inherently networked social being, relationship is the connective tissue that forms that network. It is relationship that will heal us and carry us forward.
So I end this post with love and gratitude to everyone that has been or is part of my life.
With a special note to my amazing wife that saw what I couldn’t see and gave me what I didn’t know I needed.
“Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.” — Emily Kimbrough