The sun sets on another day…
Sunset was a spectacular mix of grays. I thought for a moment that we were going to have an interesting sunset filled with color but at the last moment it was taken away and then was no more. Only the gray-white sky remained.
I thought a lot today about all the things that hold us together. I have spoke before about the circles that we carry in life. We have a close inner circle of immediate family followed by some less immediate family followed by friends followed by a whole lot of other things and other people that we keep segregated from each other in our minds and put different priorities on.
Circles are an important thing for many people because it helps them to understand how they should interact with the different players in their daily life. There is a point that this goes too far. And there is a point where it is not enough.
I dated a girl once that talked all about how everything in her life was aligned in boxes. She put her boxes all over the place and you could pretty much understand what you meant to her or what things meant to her by which box they were in. This was one of my first experiences with the idea of “boxes” and I realized very quickly that it equated to the ideas I had studied about circles. I smiled for a little while and we had lots of fun together until the day came that she told me she was having severe problems, i didn’t fit in any of her boxes. This was curious to me as I had never thought of myself as capable of fitting in a box and knew that one day when I would have to be in a box if I had to be in a box then it would have to be a really big box. I laughed to myself about that. The issue was that I operated outside of all of the different areas she had set even though I was operating close to her. Her boxes and that idea that everybody fits somewhere ended the relationship. Of course there were other determining factors but this was a big one and I did not fit in the box.
There are other people who are very close to me that don’t appear to have any boxes or circles or even have an idea of what that type of thought methodology implies. In my standard, the levels of circles as they get farther away from me are privy to less and less information. This follows many approaches in psychology and discussions that I’ve had with numerous people. As I consider that I have known people that do not segregate anyone in their list and will happily tell complete strangers the same things that they would tell their closest family member. This complete lack of any type of filter create situations where there are issues as people sometimes know too much and that either brings them closer or pushes them away. My rather strange suggestion Is to find some type of approach that creates a workable series of circles for you.
Why was I thinking about this?
Well, it appears that I have fewer circles than many and I have very few people that are close to me. The first several circles are very tight for me but as it steps further and further away I find myself keeping people at arms length period of course I am happy and interactive and of course I try to make everyone feel comfortable but there are some people that you just don’t share everything with and sometimes share very little with. I have been fortunate to have a few very good friends that I can catch up with at any time and they have never left the closed circle even though we may not have talked for a while. This level of closeness I feel is rare because many people simply lose interest in talking. Perhaps I’m wrong. It happens. I want to make certain that this year and every year that I begin to improve the communication pathways and build stronger connectors with the different circles that I have and in doing so create more positive connectors between both myself and the important people around me. Seems like a good idea to me, how about you?
So as the sun sets on another day, keep your friends close. Let people know how you feel. Don’t wait till it’s too late. Find a pathway that everyone can live with and remember that sometimes you’re right and sometimes you aren’t. Be that person that has the circles they can count on that will make them complete every day, no matter what.
Sleep sweet, love life, and get out of that box…