Relationships are so important. Yet they can be challenging. When reflecting on the content from this week, what stood out for you?
The one thing that really stood out to me in the readings for this week is the negative impact of the “busy” trend in modern society on friendships. In order to reach optimal productivity, people always prioritize aspects of their lives. The hierarchy of relationships reflects on to this prioritization and friendships always come last.
At Georgetown, this obsession with productivity is ubiquitous as well. It even goes as far as students scheduling times to hang out with their friends on Google Calendar. As one of the readings state, this scheduling can be necessary. In the reading “How Friendship Change in Adulthood”, the author writes, “The ideal of people’s expectations for friendship is always in tension with the reality of their lives, Rawlins says.” (Beck) However, I think that it also causes an exclusive clique-type social scene. Students are not as open to new friendly relationships because of their workload. Most Georgetown students are not happy with this sense of exclusivity; yet, it is almost inevitable in a culture where people have to identify their group of friends and invest in a small amount of time with them.
Although Google Calendar invites seem over the top to me, another thing that struck me in the reading is the power of communication and dedication. The author writes, “Whether people hold onto their old friends or grow apart seems to come down to dedication and communication.” (Beck) Currently, the easiest way to achieve dedication is via Google Invites because they prevent people from getting stood up and concretize their dates with friends.
In the reading on the transformation of adolescent psychology, I thought that the 3rd poin to seeking attachment in friends was interesting. Daniel Siegel explains the reason for this attachment as follows, “Why would it be natural to turn toward your peers as an adolescent? Because that’s on whom you’re going to depend when you leave home.” (Siegel) In this instance, I can easily draw a point of clash with the argument of hierarchy in relationships in the previous reading. If friendships are a psychological life or death situation for adulthood, why do we place them at the level of lowest importance? This makes me think of how modern life sometimes forces human beings out of their natural behavioural patterns and promotes habits that cause psychological problems, like loneliness and depression.
