Category: Emotions/Relationships

Social distress

What is the root cause of stress in society today ?

My hypothesis is the disintegration of “family” as a social institution. In India, family was the foundation of the social structure in society. It was the strongest of social institutions and mostly extended beyond the nuclear family into a joint family. Apart from brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts staying together, the neighbourhood also provided a natural extension to the concept of family.

Modernism and technological evolution has provided more wealth and convenience to human kind. However, it has also led to large scale migration of families from villages to cities and towns in search of better career opportunities. This has led to disintegration of family as an institution. The breaking of the joint family means that the kids of today do not have a social cover of the family and the extended family any more.

This gets further complicated by dual income families. This means both the spouses work and the kids are brought up in crèches and with home nurses or maids. This is inevitable in a city landscape and this means that the growing child depends more on the social support of these individuals than family members. Both parents need to work to maintain a sustainable living in an ever increasing competitive environment around us.

This leads to parents ability to spend less time with their children and thereby provide the necessary social and psychological support. This is then substituted by mobile phones, tablets and the television for support. This in turn leads to avoidable and sometimes undesirable influences on the minds of the children. Children get addicted to watching movies and playing games as they are not used to dirtying their hands in sand in a park any more or playing with other kids.

Many children enter a pre-school even before they are three years old as parents want to shift the daily care to a pre school as they neither have the time nor the patience to invest in them any more. This could be genuinely due to lack of time or for convenience. Either way, the children grow up in pre-school much before they deserve to be there. This leads to peer learning and habits, which may not be desirable or ordained by their parents in the normal course.

These kids growing up as millennials join organisation as employees. They are more sensitive for their age and depend on social media for all their socio-psychological support as the family has disintegrated and friends are virtual and not real any more. This leads to anxiety and stress which in turn leads to smoking, drinking or drugs when they are not able to cope with the same.

Thus “Social Distress” is a phenomenon evolving in society today. It is a complex phenomenon emanating from breaking of family as an institution and then the disappearance of real friends in society. It is time to realise that mobile phone and social media cannot be a real substitute for social and psychological support in real life. It is time to realize that technology should lead to better quality of human life and not the other way around.

The bees always remain in a well knit family. If they are disturbed as in the photo above, they are in social distress.

It is time for us to strengthen relationships all around us. It is time to spend more time in the family with our children. It is time to socially engage with family and friends in the real world. Social stress can be tackled in the real world only by strengthening the quality of all our relationships.

Time to wake ups is today.

S Ramesh Shankar

Sorrow & Joy…

Life is a journey filled with joy and sorrow. We go through days filled with joy and want to share with family and friends. However, there are other days when we are drowned in sorrow and have nobody to share with. In life in general, most people will be willing to share your joy but avoid you when you are doomed in distress. It is at this time you get to test your true family members and friends.

I have personally gone through many years in my life when it appears that the sun does not rise at all. It looks gloomy and cloudy and you have no tears left to cry. All your tears have dried up and you fail to see light at the end of the tunnel. The road in the tunnel seems endless and full of twists and turns. When someone tries to console you, you get more irritated than relieved.

It is at such times one needs to reflect. It takes time and patience to look within and reflect. Your true family and friends are beside you and provide the psychological support for you to get over this crisis. During these times, listening to your own inner voice and reflecting on it is more soothing than listening to others. However, we also need to remember that there are many people around us who are also drowned in an ocean of sadness as compared to us.

I have also met some people in my life who have gone through one crisis after another. I have no words to console them. I am aware that their tears have dried up. Only time and reflection can help them get over this phase of life. It is a tedious and arduous journey. Most of the time one has to travel alone in this journey. The secret is to live on hope. While easier said than done, I have found no better alternative so far.

What can we do when we meet people in our life, who are in such situations. Most of the time, we may not have answers to their soul searching questions. But, we can be a good listener. They also know that we may be helpless. But our physical presence and psychological support gives them hope. It is hope, which helps them limp back to normalcy. There can be no life without hope and we need to rekindle that hope in them.

It is in such weak emotional moments, the “Godmen &God women” of various religions exploit our social vacuum. They exploit our emotional weaknesses and most of them make us believe that they have super powers to help us get out of this situation. We need to guard against such men and women. They are enemies of God in human form in my view. We need to believe in ourselves and our near and dear ones, who are by our side during these times.

While I am a born optimist, it is difficult to infuse optimism in people, who are in deep distress. No words can console them. No stories can inspire hope in them. No cloth can wipe their tears since their tears have dried up by now. The one sure way of supporting them is by being with them and listening to them silently. It may be helpful to share their emotions at this hour of crisis to the best of our ability.

When you have no tears left to cry, life looks as if you are standing in front of a hill like in the photo above and it may take years to climb to the top and go over to the other side.

We also need to let them be alone during this time. Self reflection helps a lot. Our ability to be grateful and also realising that there are millions around us in more distress enables us to gain composure. We need to let them cry when they want to and lead life at their own pace. We can only embrace them with the psychological blanket of emotions.

We need to believe that tomorrow will be better than today.

S Ramesh Shankar

Emotions versus Emoticons

Bangalore 8-9-june2007 038

Man is a social being and hence needs the company of other beings at most times of his life. Another dimension of life is the emotions we go through at different stages of life. It could be joy, sadness, anger or irritation. Every emotion is stirred by a stimulus and then it impacts your life and moods. Most of us enter the world crying and leave this planet without any emotions.

Every emotion stirs our being and we want to know why it happened. When we are happy, we are keen to share the joy with others. The spirit of sharing makes us more happy. Even in moments of sadness, we want to share our sorrow. It is said in most religions that you should never miss a funeral if you come to know of some close friend or relative’s death. This is because this will be the last mortal journey and you can express your grief to that person.

On the other hand, on the birth of a kid to a relative or a friend, you will always have a second chance to wish them in the future if you miss the first day of birth due to any reasons. Interestingly, our religions and rituals do teach us a lot of basic humanness provided we are willing to learn from them. We generally tend to consider these rituals and either ignore them or disregard them.

Today, technology is increasingly making us emotion less. I am the first to adopt technology in every aspect of my life. I use the social media and all possible apps to ease my life. They are indeed very useful and makes my life easy and enjoyable. However, I do realize that wishing a friend or relative in person on their birthday cannot be replaced by millions of posts on social media. There is no substitute for the personal touch.

I realised this lately in my life. It’s always a good idea to use social media and emails to communicate with family and friends. It is indeed very efficient. However, if you want to touch someone’s life, you need to visit them, give them a hug or at least pick up the phone and speak to them. Virtual messages and emoticons cannot be filled with emotions. Our voice and physical presence are capable of sharing our emotions.

I am used to instantly recognising my colleagues at work. I feel good doing it publicly and as soon as the incident happens. I recently started writing appreciation letters in my own handwriting and when some of colleagues said that they framed and preserved these letters for their life time, I realised the value of personalisation and its impact on their emotions.

I would urge people from all generations to continue to adapt to the digital world to make themselves more efficient. However, I would further urge everyone to keep their emotional connect intact. The virtual world is untouchable. It is emotion less even with a million emoticons. The real world is a world of feelings. The emotions expressed by us to others and others to us, touches us.

Children and animals best express emotions without any inhibitions. We can learn to be spontaneous from them.

We need to learn to laugh and cry every day. We need to be like the child unadulterated in expressing our emotions. We need to be willing to be generous in sharing joy with others and make them happier every day. Every emotion expressed and shared helps us to be healthy and wise. An emotion less person is lonely and depressed. Even the animals are touched by emotions. So, why cant we as humans learn from them.

Let us start today.

S Ramesh Shankar.