The Family Of My Family Is My "Cousin."
Photo by Tara Rawana.
BY URVIL JAMES VILLARUEL
Nov. 21, 2015, Ottawa, ON - We’ve all been there. Showing up to a party where you don’t know anyone; anxious and feeling slightly alienated as you try to find your place in all of the chaos.
Suddenly, the family member that brought you turns to you and says “This is your cousin, … They’re …'s kid.”
Instantly, all tension begins to subside. Your anxiety is released and you’ve found a common ground. Completely open, willing and receptive to express yourself in a way that treats the once-stranger like a new friend.
So, why is it that it takes us being told that a stranger is something more for us to begin treating them like something more? Why does this sudden, perceived narrative - real or imaginary, close or far - allow us to be at ease in a group of strangers, now making themselves out to be our distant relatives? Love. You know that this person comes from a place of love, gratitude and connectivity.
No matter how distant a family member may be, family will always be family. Family will always be family.
Now extrapolate this idea into our daily lives. Surely, the world would be a much brighter place if every action came from a genuine state of love, gratitude and connectivity; would it not?
Thus, don’t wait for the moment of being told to be nice to some to be nice to them. Seize the moment for yourself and express your every action from a genuine state of love, through gratitude, and with the connectivity of our own common being.
Because, in the end, we're all just one family, anyways.