Brian Weiner

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood but of responsibility and involvement in each other’s lives.

How many family members do you have who are not blood of your blood?

As we mature, we collect various people into our lives. Some are friends for a day, others for a season and a select rare few, are friends for life.

When we discover these feelings towards one another, we develop a bond that only deepens over time. This bond allows us to become more trusting, more emotionally intimate with those people, than we would allow ourselves to become with others in the outside world.

This mutual trust matures with each new life experience as each of us wrestle with our deepest sorrows and celebrate our most elevated joyous experiences.

When you explore the familial relationships that mature as a direct result of such connectivity to others, you find the bonds that tie each of us to others through shared moments, perspectives, thoughts, and values.

These commonalities between us may each feel less consequential in the larger scheme of things than other elements, but as they accrue over time, we are most appreciative of the resonance they hold, when viewed collectively.

You may feel that you have hit a moment where you have absolutely nothing left in you to give anyone for anything whatsoever, but if someone you feel this way about were to call under that circumstance, you would drop everything in your world and run to their side. And, perhaps, even more importantly, you know in your heart that they would do the same for you.

There is tremendous comfort knowing that there is someone in life who feels that way about you, and as we provide those feelings of security in those whom we have grown to love, we are the purveyors of some of the most valuable feelings in others that are achievable in any spectrum of the imagination. 

Physical gifts have tremendous value in life, but not one of them ultimately compares to the gift of your heart to another human being or any living creature. In that selfless act, we are demonstrating the ultimate quality of our higher selves, and bestowing those rare emotions to others’ benefits so that they may share in the greatest of joys that we have to give.

Cherish the people whom you feel this way about. Make certain that they know you feel that way. Go the extra mile to allow them to sense your devotion to them and drop whatever you might need to drop in order to be by their side in their times of need and great joy. There are very few things in life that are more valuable than this.

Happy Saturday!