Honouring Our Roles
As society becomes increasingly self focused and self serving, I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of the titles we carry -such as daughter, son, brother and so on. To me, titles like daughter or son aren’t a given; they’re earned in the end, just as being a Mother or Father is earned through stepping up to its own set of responsibilities.
People grow up with different levels of support and love and as life moves on, roles naturally can shift. Those we once relied on, may also need to rely on us too and through learning to give back the same patience, love, generosity, thought and time, we come to understand not only the significance of truly being present in someone’s life but also the humbling impact it has on our own perspective.
While I’m making a generalisation, it does feel increasingly common that we live in a society focused on busyness, transactional relationships, selfishness and performative actions. Many seem to have lost touch with the older values centred around family time, real conversation and genuine connection. Remembering our roots humbles us and reminds us of what is truly important. No matter our life changes, it always comes back to these foundational beginnings.
Technology gives us more ways to communicate than ever before, and yet sometimes that very ease can make us complacent, lose value and create a false sense of connection. Social media and digital distractions can pull our attention away from truly being present. Our constant access to information can make us feel like we know it all, when the reality is we don’t - sometimes it feels as though we know even less than before. To some degree things are being made so advanced, over complicated and too easy all at the same time; where it feels as though it needs stripping down to basics sometimes.
Many now juggle multiple life pressures - work, studies, high costs of just surviving, daily responsibilities and then there’s also this chase for things we’re been conditioned to want. All these things can make it increasingly hard to feel human in the world. All these various factors can pull us away from the central anchors of life and in order to change that, we first have to recognise it. To recognise what is happening to humanity and what the essence of life and being human actually is. It isn’t stuff, it’s our relationships and our service to others.
Society seems a bit obsessed with self care now and while it’s important, fundamentally true self care isn’t what the industry wants us to believe, with it’s consumerism and endless products, all that does is numb people. True self care is about caring for ourselves so that we can show up better in serving others.
Everyone’s circumstances are different and each with their own complexities which makes being present with people sometimes a privileged perspective that not everyone gets the opportunity to have, but to be of service is one of the fundamentals of life.
Reflecting on these societal shifts reminds me that the roles we carry -daughter, son, brother, mother and so on; that they are titles to honour and to earn. We often see the Mother and Father roles with associated responsibilities, but so do they all. Each with a duty of care and service. I am always grateful for the support I have always had from my own wonderful parents and I treat my role with a lot of pride and honour in that responsibility. That gratitude shapes the way we can show up in different positive ways and in a world that moves faster and louder every day, it’s important to reflect and realign ourselves with what matter most. It is what has always mattered; we need only move away from the chaos of the world.