How Many Personal Relationships Do We Need?
Yesterday’s post established the great benefits of personal relationships, even in today’s world, where they have little direct practical value.
The natural follow-up question then becomes: How many relationships do we need to be happy and healthy?
After all, personal relationships take plenty of time, energy, and compromise. Trying to maintain too many doesn’t work either.
How can we find the right balance?
Follow your heart
As corny as it sounds, the best advice seems to be to listen to your feelings.
First, accept that there are serious health risks involved in persistent relationship-related stress, either from loneliness or from unhealthy relationships.
Then, simply listen to what your body is trying to tell you, and invest the time and effort required to avoid chronic exposure to these damaging stress hormones.
Another food analogy
It’s not been so long since I compared information with food. Well, now it’s time to foodify relationships.
Relationships are essential to our long-term wellbeing, just like food. Sure, the amount each person needs to be healthy varies over a much broader range, but we all need it.
Thus, relationship starvation (loneliness) is very dangerous and should be avoided (some helpful tips).
But not all relationships are good. Just like we binge on empty calories for all sorts of strange reasons, we also stay in damaging relationships for all sorts of strange reasons.
Empty relationships should be avoided (some tips) just as urgently as empty calories.
And then there is quantity. If we stuff ourselves with too many average relationships, there will soon be little space for the rest of life.
Average relationships are a lot like filler carbs. Use them sparingly.
Do you have a healthy relationship diet?
So, how did your relationships hold up in this analogy?
Are there signs of starvation? Do you have an empty relationship problem? Or perhaps your life is stuffed with too many average relationships?
If you could answer “no” to all these questions, you’re probably in a good place, relationship-wise.
If not, there’s some work to do. And since relationships could be just as crucial for health and happiness as diet, best get started.