A good friend of mine once told me this – even if we don’t keep in touch after this, know that you will still be in my heart. Well, I do believe so, but the relationship will never be the same again after some time. Why? Because in every relationship, be it with your spouse, partners, family members, friends or business associates, communication plays a very very important role.

The lack of communication will cause other side effects. If you don’t communicate often, you will start to guess. There will be a lot of MAYBEs in your mind. Because without talking to the other person, you will never know what that person is really thinking and what is actually happening to that person.

Source: http://www.nyrealestatelawblog.com

Let me give you a simple example. You cared for a friend (let’s assume it’s a HE here) who was undergoing a difficult time in his life. You tried to call him up and chat but he refused to talk. You have no idea what else you could do. A lot of assumptions would cross your mind….was he really okay? What happened to his job? What happened to his family? Was he angry or disappointed of something you did? Did you do something which betray him? You could go on and assume but you would not have your answer without talking to him. So the lack of communication between you and your friends would produce a lot of guesses and assumptions….and potentially misunderstandings and arguments.

That is why I always feel that communication plays a very important part of our life. True, there are people (like myself) who at times, cannot really express myself well….but I feel, no matter what, all of us should try. Because trying is better than not trying at all. And to try is definitely better than getting involved in a misunderstanding with someone you care.

So have you been keeping in touch with your friends? Have you been communicating properly with those you care? Do you have someone in your mind that you really want to call and chat? Why not just do it? Call them up. Ask them how have they been. Start to communicate with the people you care about. Talk to them. Listen to them.

As for me, I’m glad that I’ve managed to keep in touch with few of my old friends. Just met up with an old friend of mine a few days ago…someone who I did not contact for 2 years. Glad to have done that.

p/s…. she appeared in 1 of the comics i posted in 2008. I think some of you might have read it.

Most phones nowadays come with calendar, organizers, or other PDA functions which are meant to make you more productive and occupied. Productive? Not sure about that. But occupied? Definitely a YES.

The sad thing is, we’re becoming too occupied for our own good. We are so busy that we do not have the time to notice other people around us. We have lesser time for our family, our friends, and our neighbors. Gone were the days when we go visit our neighbors during weekends. Heck, sometimes it’s even difficult to have all the family members sit down and dine together. There will always be 1 or 2 missing family members who are too busy with their work.

And when we finally have a bit of time, we’ll either be too tired to go out or too busy trying to relax ourselves. So the most we can do is to send a short e-mail, or a simple SMS to whoever concerned. That’s it. No more snail mails (I still love snail mails actually though I don’t do it anymore). Lesser phone calls. And yeah, less frequent meet-ups as well.

So when people say technology brings everyone closer….in a way, it does. But it will only bring people “this” close….and nothing more. In fact, the warm feeling when you’ve received a snail mail from someone halfway across the globe….will never be there again. The warmness of people will start to fade with time, and the advancement of technology.

Also, if you do notice one thing, the number of hi-bye friends that we have tend to get more and more (people we don’t really notice, also known as passerby)… and the number of ‘true’ and close friends, becoming lesser and lesser. Depressing, isn’t it?

But it’s not hopeless yet. There is still something we can do – learn to appreciate and free up some of our time to BE THERE for people. It can be 5 minutes short call, 10 minutes of conversation, or 30 minutes of lunch appointment. Or just a couple of minutes of heart-to-heart chat. Be there and notice the people around you.

Remember, busy is not an excuse for not being there when someone needs you most.

I came across this story few days ago, and want to share it here.

Bob (fictional character)’s grandfather passed away few months ago. During the funeral procession, they had to drive through the city area and very few cars bother to slow down and let them pass, even though they have the funeral flags. They spent quite a long time trying to squeeze through the bad traffic. And when they’ve came out from the city area, and as they were passing a construction site, a group of construction workers looked at them, took their hats off, let them pass and stopped working.

It’s a sad story but I can see it happening in a lot of places in this world. Heck, I even witnessed an ambulance (with siren on), struggling to squeeze through the heavy traffic in China! Nobody, and I mean NOBODY wanted to give way.

Sometimes I do wonder, is it really that difficult to have a little more respect for one another? What is there to lose, if we just slow down or even stop our car, to let the funeral procession to go through? Can’t we even pay our last respect to the person? Is whatever we’re doing really matters THAT MUCH?

To be honest, I seriously doubt a few seconds of delay to whatever we’re doing can be catastrophic.

So people, perhaps it’s time for us (if you’re not doing it already) to slow down and take notice of the people around us, strangers included. Learn to notice that they are there, and learn to have respect for one another. Remember that the best gift you can give someone is your time, even if it’s for 3-5 seconds.

p/s…. Hmm, now that I think of it, I personally feel that the give way to an ambulance, if not for the fear of getting traffic summonses from our police officers.

As simple as it may seem, most of us do not have the courage to do it. “Let’s sit down and have a chat” can actually be quite a scary line when we’re trying to escape from a conflict. It’s like an official confrontation.

And yeah, most of us would just run away. We’ll keep quiet and run away from it, burying the issue deep into the darkest corner of our heart, and trying to forget it once and for all.

But will that actually fix the issue? No. It will not and there’s a high possibility that it will come back to haunt you.

That’s why I feel whenever we’re faced with issues or troubled by conflicts, it’s better to sit down to whoever is concerned and have a heart-to-heart chat. Leave your ego 100 miles away and solve the issue at hand. Respect what each other has to say and try to come out with a solution which will help everyone.

But even if there’s no solution, having a heart-to-heart chat and by just listening attentively to one another, I believe it’ll greatly help the relationship.

Because at the end of the day, I believe this world will be a better place if only everyone learns to take time to listen more, communicate more and respect each other more.

Chinese New Year is just around the corner. By now, everyone should have finished spring-cleaning their house (mm, some busy people might still be struggling with the spring cleaning). But aside from cleaning up the house, perhaps now is also a good time to look at your list of friends and do a spring cleaning too.

Here are some of the things that you want to think about when you’re cleaning up your list of friends:

Negative-minded people – people who are demotivated beyond repair. They see the bad side of everything. And they are pretty pessimistic. Anything hopeful will disappear when it reaches them. To make things worse, some of them are not willing to change to be more positive. Such friends, we can try to help but in the end, it is really up to them to change themselves. One thing we have to be careful is not to let their negative mindset influence us.

Complain king/queen – this is quite similar to the first type. These individuals will have nothing but complaints coming out from their mouth. They will complain about everything – from the sky, traffic to the people walking along the road. Avoid such people especially when you’re not in a positive and upbeat mood.

Abusive – some friends are pretty abusive and this is one of the worst around. You don’t deserve such treatment. Abusive people, be it friends, colleagues, spouse, or family members, should not be given priority in our life.

Opportunists - there’s nothing wrong with being an opportunist. But if you have a friend who only look for you when they need help, I don’t see any reason why you should keep them in your list. If you still want to keep them, then put them at the bottom of the list.

Backstabbers – another type of friends that you should avoid at all cost. But the truth is, it’s hard to tell who is the real backstabber. So be extremely careful when dealing with this. If you’re unsure, just follow your gut feel. Don’t listen to other people too much because you won’t know who is the real backstabber. But once you’ve confirmed who is behind all the mess, avoid them!

MIA (Missing in action) – the other type of friends is the type who will disappear for very very long time. People who don’t care to keep in touch with you for an extended period of time. Well, maybe they are busy with their personal life and work, but if this goes on for too long, it’s bad for the friendship. You can try to take the initiatives, but it won’t work out unless it’s from both sides. As people say, friendship is like a pot of plant. It’ll wither if you don’t water it regularly.

I know some of those listed above are not very damaging but most of them are. If you want to lead a positive life, then choose your friends and people you hang out with carefully. And for those which are not very damaging, put them down at the bottom of the priority list because …well, we only have limited time in a day. We can only focus on that many friends at one time. Better to focus on those who are worthy of our time.

If you have someone who falls into 1 or more of the categories above, and you rather not remove them from the list, then do spend some time reading one of my older post – “Have someone negative around you and want to kick him away?”

Hope it helps.

And happy Chinese New Year in advance