FROM FAMILY TOWARDS FRIENDS – THE PENDULUM IS SWINGING

When I was young I was convinced that family is the most important thing in life. No one will ever give me the love and care that my mother has given me. She has sent me off with a hug and kiss to school since I was a little boy. I have never got the same feeling when someone has told me they are proud of me other than when my father said it to me. I have always felt more loved and accepted by all but with my wife these words take a different meaning altogether. My siblings have fought with me for every bit of parental love and affection but still they remain most precious. But as I am graying with age this support system is slowly eroding. Both my parents are no more. I lost my little sister to cancer. True, in bargain we have two sons, both young men by now, launching into their own careers. Busy with our respective medical practices, though we do not have time to feel lonely today but what will we be doing tomorrow when we choose to slow down? I am sure I am not the only person who is bothering along these lines.

When we are young, we get our main support from our parents and siblings.  We rely on them for emotional support and for socialization.  But as we get older, we become more interested in what our peers think of us. There are at least two reasons for this.  First, we will need to form lasting relationships (including, presumably, romantic relationships) with people of our own age.  For this reason, the opinions of people our own age matter a great deal.  Secondly, family is a constant thing.  Our family has to love us no matter what.  People in our peer group are not like that.  We have to worry about how they will perceive us and we get more pleasure from their acceptance because it is not automatic; we earn it. These peers are usually our class mates in school and batch-mates in colleges and we call them ‘friends’.

Our family is our family by decree of birth. Our friends choose to be our friends, but our family doesn't choose us. By this same theory we cannot choose our relatives but we can and we do choose our friends. A family succeeds when it is friendly towards each other and there's nothing stopping you from considering a good friend your family! Your friends, they're the ones who accept you. If they don't, they're not your friends. Your family, if they don't accept you, you just have to live with them anyway. 

Class reunions and batch-meets usually help us by keeping us young. With the recent explosion in the world of communication, Facebook and Whats App have rekindled many a dormant ambers of friendship and camaraderie, and believe me, these are vital for survival! We have long branched out of the joint family structure to nuclear units to lonely couples to, worse still, lone survivors. All the comforts which science provides can in no way take away this loneliness and so friends are vital. When children are away in their own world, our world is populated by only our friends!

Strangely enough friends are not only vital for quality of survival but also quantity of remaining days. In a 10-year longevity study of people aged 70 and older, researchers at the Centre for Ageing Studies at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia concluded that a network of good friends is more likely than close family relationships to increase longevity in older people. The research report is based on the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ALSA).They  used a series of interviews with nearly 1,500 older people to assess how much contact they had with their different social networks, including children, relatives, friends, and other confidantes. The group was monitored annually for four years and then less often for a decade. The researchers also considered how economic, social, environmental and lifestyle factors affected the health and well-being of the seniors in the study. Based on results from the study, researchers learned:

·         Close relationships with children and relatives had little effect on longevity rates for older people during the 10-year study.

·         People with extensive networks of good friends and confidantes outlived those with the fewest friends by 22 percent.

·         The positive effects of friendships on longevity continued throughout the decade, regardless of other profound life changes such as the death of a spouse or other close family members.

While the study couldn’t say for certain why close friendships have such a dramatic effect on longevity, the authors of the report speculated that friends may encourage older people to take better care of themselves—by cutting down on smoking and drinking, for example, or seeking medical treatment earlier for symptoms that may indicate serious problems. Friends may also help seniors get through difficult times in their lives, by offering coping mechanisms and having a positive effect on mood and self-esteem.

Having your good friend’s phone number memorized or on speed-dial is the emotional version of having 911 pre-programmed. You know immediately where to turn when real trouble happens. Thank heaven I haven’t had to make one of those calls but I am fortunate that if I happen to land in trouble I have a support system of friends who care about me and will listen even if it is the dead of the night. Not only will they listen, they’ll listen without judging me. They’ll listen and offer comfort without ever saying, “I told you so” or “I knew this would happen.” In other words, they never sound like scolding parents.

In many ways, best friends say what you wish your parents might have said to you. After all, friends are part of the family you create instead of the family you’re born into—and they can understand many aspects of your life that your own family members cannot or will not accept. I expect a great deal from my truly good friends—don’t you? Don’t you expect your friends to see straight through you-to look beyond the window dressing, or even the blackout curtains, to see what’s really inside? Don’t you expect your best friends to know not only what you choose to portray for the world to see but also to know what you keep the “junk drawers” of your life?

That is the reason why I have a bunch of friends, smarter, funnier, braver, and more beautiful than me.  There’s nobody in the world with their particular talents and strengths.  Yet, like many extraordinary people, they shrug off their magic as if it’s nothing special. Through our best friends, we are rescued, repaired, and rejuvenated time and time again. May we always be able to rely on them and may we never take them for granted. My life is on a friendship pacemaker and I am sure it will last a lifetime!