The Truth About Relationships

Steven Diamond explores how we are now consumed with having the most friends on Facebook and even more following us on Twitter. But where have our true inter personal relationships with each other gone? Where is all of this heading? Think about it, just six years ago Facebook did not exist. Today, a 26 year old controls the single largest population on earth. Facebook. So I began to think about the real truth behind our relationships, how we build them and where all of this is going.

There’s an important life lesson to be learned here.

Stress at the DMV: Why Less Power Means More Stress

In general, a person who has less relative power is under greater stress –
especially in personal and societal relationships—than someone who has greater relative power. Someone with greater relative power (depending on personality, cultural upbringing, the present situation), will generally have less reason to fear fallout from negative interactions than someone one with less power.

If you are in a position of power (or even if you aren’t), and have trouble imagining how those with less power feel, think of your last trip to the DMV or the Post Office (or any dealings you may have had with the IRS).

Now do you remember what it feels like to have less relative power? Think about the long lines and the unintelligible forms you have to fill in that seemed designed to trip you up! Think about the sheer amount of time you have to spend attending to these bureaucratic requirements. In these and other taxpayer-funded agencies the citizen has almost no power relative to the public employees whose salaries they pay.

In these situations, people you have had no previous relationship with, i.e. government bureaucrats, have been granted an incredible amount of control over your ability to travel or communicate with others or simply control over your time and the money you’ve earned! They are in power, you are not.