Much ado over relationships - 1 - the evolving context

A friend had this link to a post on infidelity recently, where the lady was preaching about a whole lot of things. And that got me thinking, coz wat that lady said sounded almost trite to me.

Hence a minor deviation from our usual story roundup, to talk about, well not infidelity per se but relationships in general.

A caveat however before we start, i'm only a single 26 going on 27 chap, not someone who can claim to have that marriage which lasted 50 golden years of happiness...so do take what i say with a pinch of salt, probably your understanding of relationships is better than mine.

So the way I see it, the world has evolved from the time the definition of relationships like 'family' and 'marriage' were formed.

In a marriage for one...'interdependence' is a strong linkage making both the parties need each other. While traditionally 'men' used to go out and earn food and money 'women' were the emotional providers.

Cut to the present shot...both 'men' and 'women' go out there to earn money and hence 'both' require emotional support and more so require to be emotional providers.

Now point two, earlier work used to be (and i'm talking really early times)...go out in the morning, water the fields and rest of the day chat under the banyan tree. Ok in more recent times, it was go do your work and be back by 5. Now...8-8 is the usual timings for a lot of people and that at the junior level, as you go higher its usually 7-11. You fit in meetings, reviews, office talks, con-calls, pre-work, post-work and all that and you barely have time to breathe....and lesser time for relationships...so while you may have the need for emotional support...you end up not having time to either consume or provide it.

Point three, farmers really didn't care if his neighbour produced a few more bushels of wheat...what was he gonna do...smoke a better hooka? As the number of materialistic choices increase, our focus is progressively on getting a better house, a bigger car, a bigger tv, a smaller cell. The need to prove to the worl that i'm no. 1, higher increments, faster promotion, respect at work...as it is about 70% of my time is getting devoted to the office...hence most of the 'needs' also shift towards the office...and so office relationships and dynamics and achievements get highlighted more than personal relationships.

Office becomes less as a place to earn bread for the family but more like a family in itself, except that it has no place for your emotions, which are left orphaned.

Hence as a summary what is hurting modern day relationships is three key things
1. Reducing 'interdependence' in traditional terms and not yet evolved contemporary interdependence
2. Reduced time availability for personal life
3. Increasing importance of work place achievements over personal achievements

So is it doomsday for relationships?

I wouldn't believe so, like always humans are evolving to the new conditions around them. The interdependence is evolving, men are learning to be the emotional providers also, women are finding their own place in the corporate envt.

Having seen others fail, people are realizing to pull back and give time to family and slowly people are beginning to question the importance of materialistic achievements...cause they find, hey whats the fun with that new promotion, if i'm gonna be divorced and there's no one whose gonna be cheering me up and feeling happy over my success.

Though the point is, those of us who don't evolve, or evolve slowly will find the process of evolution very very hard to bear. Cause thats how evolution works, when the sun is burning down on your head, you either learn to build a shelter against it very quick or you well, have u seen sun dried tomatoes :P