Relationship Burning?

The more time I spend blogging, the more “unusual” relationships I develop with people I meet online along the way. It never occurred to me that I would be meeting a lot of people this way. After all, I was among the last people in my circle of friends who finally succumbed to the prospect of writing an online journal.

Over the years, I seem to have forgotten to keep track of the relationships that I had with my High School batchmates, my College blockmates and classmates, and my previous officemates. I don’t know what happened, but I guess I guess I just took my relationships with them for granted, and now I’m finding it hard to find out where they are and at least find out what’s new in their lives.

If it wasn’t for friendster, I wouldn’t have any idea on where most of ‘em are, and even then, I find it awkward that I suddenly send them a message out of the blue asking them how they are. I dunno why, but I get all jittery, and just procrastinate and tell myself that I would eventually find a way to contact them in the future, one way or another.

It suddenly made me wonder if I was the only one in the same boat. How many of us have kept in touch with our friends and acquaintances throughout the years? I’ve noticed that it seems to be easier to burn bridges than to rebuild them. Do we eventually burn the bridges by taking our relationships for granted? I know I’m guilty, but I don’t know if I’m the only one.

Zig Ziglar, in his book Top Performance, quotes former Coca-Cola head Robert W. Woodruff*:

Life is pretty much a selling job. Whether we succeed or fail is largely a matter of how we motivate the human beings whom we deal with to buy us and what we have to offer.

Success or Failure in this job is essentially a matter of human relationships. It is a matter of the kind of reaction to us by our family members, customers, employees, and fellow workers and associates. If this reaction is favorable we are quite likely to succeed. If the reaction is unfavorable we are doomed.

The deadly sin in our relationship with people is that we take them for granted. We don not make an active or continuous effort to do and say things that will make them like us, believe us, and that will create in them the desire to work with us in the attainment of our desires and purposes.

Again and again, we see both individuals and organizations perform only to a small degree of their potential success, or fail entirely, simply because of their neglect of the human element in business and life.

They take people and their actions for granted. Yet it is these people and their responses that make or break them.

Funny how reading that struck a chord in me. After all, I was in a sales job, and there I was creating rapport with my customers by trying to establish a moment of trust while I’m trying to make a sale, but then I forget that I’m also in the business of sales in my personal life: with family, with co-workers, and with friends. No wonder I couldn’t seem to find any help when Ellie and I really needed it a few years back. Not really just a matter of financial help, but at least emotional and mental help.

At least, that’s what blogging does for me. The fact that I’m able to reach out and come into contact with people who would otherwise be complete strangers in real life means that it’s still not to late for me to at least apply what I’m learning online to my life offline.

Then, if ever that happens, then maybe, just maybe, I might succeed in this sales job called life.

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I know you’ve been trying to get on touch with me JC, and I know I’ve been busy these past few months, and I know that we should be getting together after all these years. You were one of my best buds, and I’m sorry for not exerting more effort in trying to get together. I’ll try to make it up, promise.

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* Excerpts from Winning with People, by John C. Maxwell