Relationships

I haven’t been away. I’ve been having the time of my life being entertained by young nieces and nephews, in-laws and in-laws of in-laws who have been in SA from at least 3 corners of the earth to celebrate Grandmere’s 80th birthday. It has been great fun and when great uncle Pierre returns to France on Saturday night we will be back to normal, I think! And in between all this my PC contracted a massive virus, went to the repair shop, then back again and again, operating systems were uninstalled, re-installed, uninstalled and so on; I am hoping everything is now ok…. fingers crossed.

So with all the family stuff happening, seeing old faces and meeting new ones, renewing friendships, I thought this blog should be about relationships and how they affect our lives, how we age, our happiness, our friendships, our business lives……

Relationships

For 70 + years an incredible program designed to study mental and physical well being has been conducted by Harvard University. The study was designed to find out what made people happy and has examined a group of 268 Harvard students over their entire lives.

Professor George Vaillant has directed the study for the past 40 years and this is what he says about general well-being and aging well:

"That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people."

And

"It is social aptitude not intellectual brilliance or parental social class, that leads to successful aging."

Tom Peters has this to say about relationships:

Basics #1. "It's always 'the people.' " It may be glib, but in this instance I don't care. Network, keep your promises, behave decently. Your are as good as your relationships. Period. Short term. Long term. Good times. Tough times. This is the time (though all times are, in fact, the time) to "over" invest in relationship building and maintenance.