With this year drawing to a close I thought it only fitting to share some of my gleanings from a life-changing book I just read titled Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward by Dr. Henry Cloud. As a result of it, I whittled my contact list to fit what has become known as Dunbar’s number, so named for the anthropologist who identified it and which states that people can juggle only about 150 relationships at a time.
Suffice it to say that the good in our relational lives cannot begin until the bad ends. Yet people generally struggle with how to properly end relationships. As Cloud points out, with the closure of a relationship there is a big difference between hurt and harm. “We all hurt sometimes in facing hard truths, but it makes us grow…Harm is when you damage someone. Facing reality is usually not a damaging experience, even though it can hurt.”
Another gem I garnered from the book has to do with misunderstood loyalty. According to Cloud, “It is just one of the truths about life: sometimes we need to do something for ourselves or our business that is not good for someone else, at least not in the short term.” And as adults we need to learn to communicate: “I am not doing this ‘to you.’ I am doing it ‘for me.’” Again, there is a big difference here.
Part of my winnowing process this year with relationships in my life involved setting boundaries with some and cutting ties with others. I even parted ways with a longtime client who acted increasingly dysfunctional. With Linda and I now both in our 50’s life has become too short to tolerate nonsense either of a personal or professional variety. As the above photo illustrates, a setting sun can be beautiful but also a reminder that time is winding down.
It is also worth noting here that this is my 300th post in about 15 years of blogging, which works out to 20 substantial essays per year and at an average of 400 words per post it means I have written more than 120,000 words or enough for a 480-page book. So, I am thinking of compiling the cream of the crop into one concise document for sale as an e-book. And I’d love to get your feedback in order to gauge overall support of such a project!