Why Relationships Are Important?

Relationships are important because human beings are social creatures. No one can live in isolation for a long period of time without this affecting their mental health. There is an old quote by the English philosopher John Donne: No man is an island. This quote comes from a poem written by Donne about the dangers of isolationism and what happens when people cut themselves off from others.

Relationships, in addition to providing us an important social outlet, also teach us more about ourselves. It isn't easy to understand ourselves based only on our internal thoughts and external behaviors. We can easily deceive ourselves or have inaccurate ideas of who we are and what we appear to be to others. Social relationships can allow us to see ourselves through the eyes of other people. This, in turn, can create a more accurate reality of who we are or at least appear to be to those around us.

Another reason why relationships are important in our lives: community. Community is impossible without relationships. The community provides multiple benefits for people; communities form strong bonds between people, which allow them to help one another. Providing service to others is psychologically beneficial to those providing the service (i.e., feeling needed) and those helped (i.e., feeling they matter). The community also allows people to exchange information with each other, which was important before modern communications being invented.

Finally, relationships allow us to express the most powerful emotion within the human condition: love. Obviously, we can love ourselves, which is important, but the ability to love others is just as important. For the ancient Greeks, love was so important they had various names of the different types of love that existed in various relationships. For instance, eros was the name given to intimate, sexual relationships but philia was the name for the deep friendship between two individuals. The love between family members was often called storge. Without relationships, love in its many forms cannot be properly expressed.

So relationships are clearly important not only for our own mental health but also for our family members, friends, communities, even the human race in general.