Today’s post can easily be taken as a business, technological or investment advice, but actually – it has to do with relationships.
I come from a small, but pretty tight knit family. That on the piece of paper might sound sexy, but in the reality in the bigger picture, and as time goes on is actually bad.
My mother had me more than 2 decades ago and basically has said on a number of occasions that I was the “best thing that happened to” her. Ok that’s nice and flattering, but that same mentality that went into my childhood, into my teenage years and into my adulthood sorry looses its relevancy. Why? Because my mother has admitted recently that she overprotected me. Factor that, and knowing my father was absent in my life then my mother loosing her high school friend, I guess she started to build her life around me. Then basically my life was built around my mother.
Is there something wrong in that picture?
The answer is “yes.”
As you probably learned in school if you are around my age, you are not supposed to be overly reliant on anyone, or depend on someone to love you or to live them. You shouldn’t be spending your entire life around one person and revolve around you two ether.
What if something happened to your family member, or even your loved one? I knew a guy who worked in my school who actually lost his wife unexpectedly. They went to lunch and said goodbye and I love yous and then got a telephone call from a hospital that she died (something like a heart attack.) He actually got so depressed he actually went psycho. I don’t know what happened to him. My school I used to go to doesn’t employ any of the staff I was close with anymore. They are all elsewheres in life. Anyways He was kinda chickie like guy, depending on his wife to do everything.
Ok, enough with independency what about redundancy?
You should never have just a first tier of social circles. It’s just like baseball or football, you should have second or third stringers and make sure those stringers have enough experience on the field just in case the first tier fails.  Can I say Tom Brady? You’d know what I am talking about If you have watched a few New England Patriots games.
For example: instead not just having one friend, or one BFF; take into consideration to have maybe two or three.  The average in my household is actually 2 – too me that’s unhealthy, but it shouldn’t be like 500 ether. Maybe 6 would be the best. Redundancies come into play in case one of your friends gets too tied up with a girlfriend or a wife, someone getting knocked up and then has to put 100% attention to the kid till s/hes 18, or even a job can distract someone.  By spreading out the risk to other people who might not be in a similar situation is strongly recommended. This requires your social circle to be as diverse and fault tolerant as possible – which goes to your advantage.
Having multiple levels of relationships and levels of backup and social failovers are the best way you can live your life healthily. It’s the same of putting too many eggs in one basket, or a Swiss Army Friend, they can do a lot, but if that one fails, then you might fail as well.