Relationships are like dishes

If I asked you to list in order the most important people in your life, who would you put first? Second? or so on?

It wouldn't be easy. You would have to choose between your spouse and your children, or your son and your daughter. How could you choose that? It wouldn't be fair.

If you were asked to categorize your list, it would be much easier.

There are three basic categories of relationships.

1. People we know but aren't part of our everyday lives.
2. People we care about who affect our daily lives.
3. People we love and would do anything to keep them happy.

The first kind might be old school friends, past co-workers or a person we met at a social gathering. These people are acquaintances. There may be a mutual past between the two of you. But there's no present. Despite Facebook, you don't really know what's going on in their lives and they don't know what's going on in yours.  These relationships are like disposable plates. The kind you like to use at the family barbecue. You want them to be clean, but you're going to throw them away when the barbecue is done and you won't think about them again until the next time you use them.

The second kind are friends, extended family and co-workers. We care about these people more than the first group. We see them more often. We feel sad when they are sad. We are happy for them when they succeed at something. We might miss these people if they were no longer in our lives. These relationships are more like the regular dishes that we use from day to day. We don't want them to break. We don't want to throw them away. We like them the way they are. But if one disappears, we get over it quickly because we have others just like it.

The third kind of relationships are the people we love: parents, children, spouse, grandchildren, grandparents, a really good friend, a sister, brother, aunt or uncle.

These people are cherished. Life wouldn't be the same without them. These people could never be replaced. These relationships are like fine china. If one breaks, it would devastate us. We treat them extra special.

In examining your own relationships, are you treating the most important people in your lives like fine china or like paper plates?