It's the quality of your relationships that matters.
Interpretation
The strength and depth of your connections with others are more important than any external success.
This quote emphasizes that the value of our lives is not determined by our achievements or material possessions, but rather by the quality of the relationships we cultivate. Strong, meaningful connections with family, friends, and loved ones provide support, happiness, and a sense of belonging that enrich our experiences and contribute to our overall well-being.
In practice
Encouraging someone to focus on building deeper bonds rather than just chasing career success.
Being human means there's a wall-builder in each of us. Our minds naturally divide the world into me and not-me, us and them. For thousands of years, our sages have taught that we're all one, yet we still divide wherever we look.
The good life is built with good relationships.
It's not just the number of friends you have, and it's not whether or not you're in a committed relationship. It's the quality of your close relationships that matters.
It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community, are happier, they're physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected.
People who are more isolated than they want to be from others find that they are less happy, their health declines earlier in midlife, their brain functioning declines sooner, and they live shorter lives than people who are not lonely.
Most of what we know about human life we know from asking people to remember the past, and as we know, hindsight is anything but 20/20. We forget vast amounts of what happens to us in life, and sometimes memory is downright creative.
Unlike Chicago or New York, small-town Minnesota did not allow a man's failings to disappear beneath a veil of numbers. People talked. Secrets did not stay secret.
It was strange to see someone you have only known alone begin interacting with other people, for that somebody known to you disappears and is replaced by a different, more complex, person. You watch him revolve in this new company, revealing new facets, and there is nothing you can do but hope you like these other sides as much as you like the side that seemed whole when it faced only you.
All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.
Be obedient to the bishop and to one another, as Jesus Christ was in the flesh to the Father, and the apostles to Christ and to the Father and to the Spirit, so that there may be unity in flesh and in spirit.
I wonder what you look like under your t-shirt. I wonder what you sound like when you're not wearing words. I wonder what we have when we're not pretending.
In so many ways, my soccer career taught me about seeing the value of all people, whether or not society sees it first. Relationships with people who are perceived to be 'different' have taught me the same lesson.
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