THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF A GOOD SOCIAL LIFE

Photo by Kimson Doan on Unsplash

Even the most solitary person has some form of social life and even if there are different degrees of being social, we need a social life to function well.
 
I work with a lot of clients that live abroad and they notice immediately how important the social dimension of their life is. Moving abroad means not having  a social life at the beginning, it means to have to work at it, work hard at it sometimes, in order to create one. And only then you realize how complex it can be to fit in a new social reality and how it affect your self-image if you do not feel like you fit in.

On the other hand, when you live in the place where you were born, you may not even notice how important your social life is to you. You might take it a little for granted: family, friends, people you've been playing sports with or other activities for years, for example. They say that you realize how important certain things are only when you miss them, and in fact it often is.
 
Becoming attentive on our social interaction can prove quite a journey of discovery of yourself. Here are three incredible chances you get when developing a new social network.
 
You discover in which ways the opinions of others affect your self-image. Because it is a new network, you may notice different reactions to you as a person or what you say and do. You may become aware of how self-confident or insecure you are with others or you may feel you want to give less of a power to other’s people opinions and ideas;
 
Within a new social environment, you also become aware of the value that friends and family have for you, their real importance in your life. You may want to cherish certain relationships even more and/or realize some contacts can be better be broken;
 
You will discover yourself in the most deep and meaningful way when you build a new social network in a different culture or with people that are really different from you for culture, language, religion or even just for personality or gender.
 

Nothing can be considered self-evident if you are interacting with someone who's culture, language, religion etc. is not the same as your own. You are likely to approach things differently from them, that you give different definitions to things and/or to be used to do things that are completely different. (Believe me this is true even amongst European cultures)
 
 
Unfortunately the uncertainty and risks involved in creating a new social network are scary and many avoid the task and isolate themselves. We know from studies that happiness is related to having meaningful social relationships. The quality is much more important than the quantity of course.
 
If you are isolating yourself or know someone that is, consider to open up to social contacts or helping someone to open up to at least one social contact.
 
It doesn't matter how busy we are or how we believe we don't need others in our life, we really do.
 
Do you want to keep talking about this or you want some more help with it?
Get in touch with me! [email protected]