Mindfulness: The Changing Definition of Family and Living Together
Most of our decisions are made in the name of family, but they don’t serve any bigger purpose. We can be aloof while living together and be together while being physically far away. Coronavirus is making it difficult to survive while being alone. Defeating it can be easy, if we stand together.
A decade ago, we could survive the economic recession because we had savings, but more important was our togetherness. Now, we have scattered. We assumed meaning of joint family as living together physically. But we forgot that it is not possible under changed conditions of cities. It is not possible to live together even if you are in the same city, but it is not difficult to stand by each other despite living separately.
Here’s the story of Vivek Vaswani of Indore. One of the five brothers of a well settled family had to bear heavy losses due to corona. He decided to move to a different city because his brothers refused to provide any kind of help while Vivek always tried to help them.
I asked him not to make any opinion about the world in a rush. His family mighty have abandoned him but his friends helped him.
This is the definition of family. Story of Vivek is the story of faith in love and humanity. Life closes a door but then opens several windows.