Introduction
Explaining relationships is a rather challenging matter for every person. This can be explained by the fact that people have numerous kinds of relationships with other people or with the phenomena of objective reality and all people understand their relationships in a way that no one else in the world will ever be able to realize. Besides, relationships occur, appear, and stop every moment of human life and it is kind of hard to trace them and to make an attempt to explain this or that kind of relationship. Relationships that people go through every day include, first of all, their relationships with their parents and other members of their families.
Furthermore, as I have already said, relationships are different and can include not only relationships with other people. People can have certain relationships with their pets, for example, cats or dogs, with the things they run across every day or have to use in work or day-to-day life. Relationships can also occur between people and their native land and its nature and landscapes. For me, relationships mean every act of communication with people that surround me and with the things that I consider to be the most important for a 25 years old man. So, in this essay, we are going to examine all the above-mentioned kinds of relationships to analyze them, see their essence and explain them.
Interpersonal Relationships
The first to consider here, and the most often type of relationships that can occur is the relationships between people. We can observe these relationships in our everyday life and they constitute the bulk of the social life of every person. For example, there is a kind of relationship, in this case, scientific or professional, between a student and his or her teachers, and vice versa between a teacher and all his or her students, as well as relationships with each student in particular.
There are also various kinds of relationships between teachers, and these relationships can be called professional ones. Between students in this or that group of a certain educational establishment, there are also relationships; sometimes they are professional, sometimes – private. Another example of interpersonal relationships can be found in the life of every person. For instance when a person goes shopping and communicates with shop assistants and other customers of the shop. But, in any case, the most important kind of interpersonal relationship is the relationship with the family and parents.
Family Relationships
This kind of relationship is so important because it influences to a great extent the psychology of people and predetermines the whole future life of people. Relationships within a family can be characterized by such phenomena as love, obedience, respect, or vice versa hatred, protest, and scorn. The choice depends upon a person and is determined by his or her attitudes towards the family and the events that happen between them. Relationships between parents and children have always been very interesting for people, and here we are going to consider one of the cases of these relationships depicted by a famous poet, novelist, and teacher Cindy Bosley in her essay called “What the Honey Meant”.
This essay describes the relationship between a daughter and a father who left the family one day. The basic symbol of the essay is the honeycomb which is associated with the father of the girl. Her only memories connected with her father were pitiful because what she remembered best was the day when he left, and that day was associated with that honeycomb that the father brought home. She tasted the honey and liked it, but then she went to sleep and her father left.
Since that time the first thing she would think of seeing another honeycomb was her father’s leaving. She did not see how he left as she was sleeping at that moment, but she always started thinking about her father when a honeycomb was in her scope. That is why, when her husband brought her a honeycomb, the first person she thought of as her father. Her next idea was that something bad would happen. She was afraid that her husband would leave her, as well as her father, did.
Thus, the close connection between interpersonal relationships and certain symbols is demonstrated. Moreover, the importance of father and daughter relationships is vividly demonstrated by the above-considered example. The trauma she experienced in her childhood relationships with her father was so hurting that the same symbol in another relationship made the pain and fear return. This girl’s father was so important for her, that she could not forget the day when he left and everything from that day stayed in her memory.
Non-Personal Relations
But besides personal relationships, people often experience non-personal ones, i. e. the relationships connected with certain objects of the reality that people face every day. These relationships include close devotion to pets that some people feel and due to which special relationships between them are formed. A kind of such relationship is described in the essay “Dog-Tied” by David Hawes. The author’s works are interesting from the point of view that he tries to see things from both sides of the story. And in this essay as well, Hawes examines the relationships between a dog and its owner taking into consideration the thoughts of the owner and possible thoughts of the dog about the relationships between them.
This kind of relationship seems to be strange even for the author himself, but he sees a certain charm in it. His devotion to his dog may surprise people or make them say that he spoils the dog by such a treatment, but he has his reasons for it. Of course, such a devotion to a dog is not a common thing, especially taking into consideration the fact that people domesticated dogs for help at work. Besides, such close relationships can be seldom found between people, needless to say about dogs. But the author explains it simply. He says that there is nothing better in the world for him than to see how glad his dog is when he returns home from work, or how the dog wakes him up in the morning.
There are also such specific kinds of relationships in the world like relationships of people with their native land, with the objects of their professional activities, and even with their addiction to alcohol or drugs. Each of these kinds of relations has its peculiarities. For example, the relations of people with their land allow them to have their ethnic identity and national culture based on these relations and dedicated to them. All people face relations with their work as well.
Thus, doctors have relationships with their patients but also with the medicines they deal with and even pills they prescribe their patients. People addicted to something are also bound to relationships with the objects of their addictions. Alcoholics have to fight their addiction by their will; drug addicts must also resort to medical help to fight their addiction. This involves them in other relationships that are very complicated and multiple.
So, as we can see, people face thousands of various relationships during their lives in society. They face personal and non-personal relationships, relationships with their parents, friends, pets, as well as with their habits, addictions, etc. All these relationships are very important for people and influence people’s lives in numerous different ways.