Learning Experience #4: Vitality of Relationships

Through all of my course work this semester, my eyes have been consistently opened to the vital importance of relationships. Not only have I begun to see the importance of relationships between people, but also how distinctly our lives are shaped by the relationships we have with our environments, our settings, and even our ideals. As silly as it sounds, relationships are all around us. Whether we take note of it or not, how we interact in our daily lives is essential to our wellbeing and happiness. While I have been studying everything from history to math to sociology, and strategic communications, it seems that in all of these subjects, there is one common theme: relationships. Clearly throughout history, relationships between historical figures, voters, and politicians have drastically shaped the course of our nations path. Even relationships between countries have been noted on each and every page of our history books. In sociology, I learned how drastically one’s life could be altered if he or she is not nurtured by their peers. In Literature and Civilizations, I was even able to learn about the influence of laughter on the relationships we have. In math, we see how the relationships of certain numbers and methods affect the outcome we receive in our answers. Even an unsteady relationship with our environment can cause a stir in our day-to-day lives. For example, taking a test in a new area can be distracting enough to affect the score we receive. To the out of state students, it is apparent that being unfamiliar with their new environment can strongly affect their state of mind, mood, and longing for home. When the streets ice over or the thermometers reach 107 degrees, it is not uncommon for a California native to wish they were in the comfort of their consistent, warm hometown climate. A perfect example of the necessity of relationships is the BLUU. The sweet women that work in the BLUU never hesitate to remember our names or wish us well as we go about our day, and the chefs take the time to fill our tummies each and every meal. Not only that, but no one likes to eat alone, and seeing a familiar face is always refreshing. That is one of the great perks of being a TCU student, within 20 minutes of walking around the campus, one is bound to see someone her or she knows. Relationships are all around us. Furthermore, the likelihood of having a professor multiple times within a major is highly likely; therefore, maintaining strong professor/student relationships can greatly affect not only the wellbeing of the student but also the professor. Without our friends and family just steps away, maintaining trustworthy, dependable relationships with our friends is a necessity. Knowing there are people around we can depend on, particularly when our parents cannot come running, but we simply need someone to confide in. Since the day we stepped foot on campus, we have been preached to about how important it is for us to attend seminars, career nights, and public events in order to make connections with well informed people within our fields of study. The basis of all of these potential connections is relationships. Without relationships with people we know, these potential connections would not be a possibility for us in the first place. If our professors had not related to their fields of study when they were our age, they would not be able to relay their teachings to us today. Our lives are made up of a giant web of relationships. Whether we realize it or not, our past, present, and future are shaped by the people we know, the environments we live in, and the messages and beliefs that have been passed down to us for years and years. It is so important that we foster and nurture these vital relationships, because they will forever change us and the courses our lives will follow.