Harmony in Relationships – An Essay

Humans by nature are pack animals; we are typically social, gregarious creatures who crave companionship.  This is an instinct that has developed over thousands of years of evolution, a mechanism that guaranteed the survival of our species.  As a unit we are stronger, we have the support we need to stay alive, care for our young, etc.  This genetic, survival based instinct has instilled in us a need for family, and this need is something that we strive to have and create in all situations.  We create ‘families’ where we work, where we play, and in our homes.  We fall into ‘families’ instinctively and when we do not have them we will find them.  If we cannot find a human family we will create one with our pets, or even in a fantasy world of our imaginations.  This need for family and intimacy can be seen in small children, who without physical, real world companions will invent imaginary ones in the form of stuffed toys or even the invisible friends who are always with them.  This desire for family is engrained in us as a survival instinct, driving us to create families even if those we choose to include are not the right people in our lives.  Even in this day and age, where families, children, etc, seem to be an outdated notion, people are still trying to find that intimacy.  We need to fill that hole, which seems to be the trend that drives so many people into one relationship after another.  This chronic need for companionship, though motivated by instinctual and ‘good’ reasons, can be extremely dysfunctional in the sense that humans tend to fill the need for family with the wrong persons.  We attach ourselves to groups that offer us acceptance, even if it is the wrong form of attention.  Each relationship we develop takes a part of us, and each relationship we lose takes that part with them.  Because we don’t always make the right decisions in whom to trust and share our lives with, we create more and more scars and more and more dysfunction in the world around us. 

Our need for relationships is not something we can completely disregard.  There is a purpose for it in our lives.  If we try to become completely self sustained and self sufficient, we lose much of ourselves.  We create isolation and lose many of the benefits of having these relationships in our lives.  In this modern world we may no longer need companions and family for survival, we are more than capable of proceeding through this life on our own.  But it is not merely the physical needs that we must have met.  On an emotional level, we need companions; we need emotional validation and exchange.  We need to be cared for and care for someone.  Individualism like most things is healthy in a balanced amount.  If we spend all of our energies and time on being alone and self contained, we become apathetic, separate and distanced from the world in which we live.  Too much solitude can be as detrimental as no solitude.  There are times when we must be alone, and it is then that it is valuable to be individualized.  It gives us time to develop ourselves, get in touch with our needs and only then are we able to interact with others in our lives in a functional and healthy manner.

There is no argument one can make to eliminate our need for solitude and our need for companionship.  There must be a balance within all of us.  We must have physical, emotional and mental intimacy with other humans as well as in depth solitude to replenish ourselves. Intimacy is key to mental and emotional health, “Intimacy is intense affection for, commitment to and sharing of intellectual, physical and emotional connections with another person” (Williams, Sawyer, Wahlstrom, pg 16).  It is only in this balancing of perspectives that we can find harmony to create functional relationships with ourselves and others.