Not everybody gets along well with their family members, and few, if any, get along with their family members all of the time. However, that said, it is of vital importance to do one’s best to get along with family members because a whole lot of life’s lessons are represented through the microcosm of how we interrelate and deal with our family members, which is ultimately expressed writ large, in our relationships outside our family dynamic. In other words, disappointments, conflicts, betrayal, and the like are part and parcel of the real world, and if we aren’t able to handle such within our family dynamic, this doesn’t bode well that we will be able to handle such with aplomb in the world outside our family.
It has to be acknowledged that some people have very troubling and toxic family relationships which is no real fault of their own, and of which, they then must do what they need to do to correct or to step away from that which is creating such trouble for them, for there isn’t any good reason why a good person should go down with the ship, when the best route is to abandon it, because some situations are unresolvable when the other party simply isn’t going to do their necessary part to correct what needs to be corrected on their end.
Nevertheless, it needs to be recognized that those who are unable to forgive their own family members or themselves are the same who are susceptible to not having good relationships with other people, because every relationship is going to have some degree of tension, failure, and disagreement. Those who are mature and wise recognize that we don’t need to and ought not to seek those who are mere cookie-cutter cutouts of our own selves, because that would seem to be redundant. Rather, we need to comprehend better that everyone is entitled to their own viewpoint and opinion, and that which we owe the other when we disagree is to respect where they are coming from, without having to agree with it.
As much as some of us believe that the world and, therefore, society revolves around ourselves, the truth of the matter is that it does not, and because it does not, we need to come to the table with others, recognizing that we are all inherently equal and therefore entitled to the same gifts as everyone else. So too, in recognition that we don’t always get it right, we need to therefore provide space to others because they are not going to always get it right, either. After all, spending an inordinate amount of our time belittling the other, criticizing the other, and so forth, has no good purpose behind it, because the same could be done to us, and the ultimate result is not beneficial. Indeed, the best start to a productive and healthy social life in our interactions with others begins at home, where it could be said, we learn from those interactions what does or does not work, and from there we can carry our best characteristics to the outside world, which will bode well for us and the society that we are a member of.