Your Neighbors
The old saying goes that your neighbor shares and supports you during your difficult or times when you need someone most. It’s a common fact that the relations are different what these used to be until few decades back but the reasons are obvious, although nothing has gone wrong. People living in your colonies or societies are same but the main problem is the lack of availability of time due to an altogether different lifestyle. Most couples are working with a tight schedule and no one seems to be ready taking extra bit of tension even if it was for the sake of formality. However the truth today says that a neighbor is only a neighbor as long as you do not expect too much from him.
The old was gold
There are different opinions about social values, as most social engineers would say that socialism teaches us many finer points of life and a society consists of family, neighborhood and playgroups. We learn finer points of living a good life from all three segments, which help us becoming good human, good member of society with helping nature. According to social engineers, family comes first while neighborhood and paygroups stand at equal levels which help us learning the process of art of living. However there is no denying the fact that if we have a good neighborhood half of the tensions of life vanish before these begun taking an ugly shape.
Although the changing times have brought number of changes in present day life of our society, you can see it in the behavior of people which has become more formal than compared to what it used to be. People would sit together to discuss but no one has time for social gatherings any more lie before and we have no one to blame for that. Everyone wants to live his own life taking his own priorities in consideration and some times even if you are willing to help your neighbors, probably they are not willing to accept it fearing you may ask for the same in case you are in trouble if ever. Chances are, our relations which have become more formal with neighbors will remain as formal unless the younger generation has other ideas and this statement stands truer for people living in metros particularly in multistoried buildings, colonies and societies with exceptions at old localities where walls of the houses are common and sounds reach to each other easily.
Let me give you an example of bad neighbor
It was probably an evening of summer in 2008 while I was standing in my front yard from where I could see a child of about eight standing in his second floor balcony in the building just opposite across the road. The boy had an apple in his hand and when he tried the first bite he somehow dropped it from his hands that fell down into front yard of family staying on ground floor. A few minutes later a girl about ten years old called the boy down and her mother said some thing angrily, I did not hear the words clearly but saw the boy picked the crushed apple and took it back to his home. Later his mother told my wife that the lady on ground floor behaved too rude with the boy and asked him not to eat anything in his balcony.
I think this ugly incident could well be avoided with little bit of commonsense and understanding even if these two families did not have cordial relations with each other. And this incident is not an exceptional one, we generally see people making mountains of molehills out of very small and avoidable matters. They find small excuses to take out their frustrations gathered over the days and weeks of over-worked situations at their workplaces. What I feel that quarreling with neighbors is not right kind of strategy but if you feel that your neighbor is not interested in having relations with you, it’s better to sideline him but quarreling has no solution of any problems. You should read behavior of your neighbors carefully before making efforts to increase terms as most of the times these turn sore even for smallest of matters. Therefore it’s better to stay neutral and keeping your terms up to hi-hello levels.
It’s not that you have to meet with rude ones only but chances are you may find some very good neighbors even if the chances are too slim. However, you are as responsible to keep relations normal with your neighbors as expecting too much is the root cause of bad relations so you should keep your expectations to bare minimum. Treat children and parents of your neighbors with love and respect that is one important aspect of respectful relations with your neighbors, as no one wants their family members treated badly. Here are few tips, which should keep your relations with your neighbors wonderfully well-
1- Let your neighbor a feeling of assurance that you stand with them in their moments of joy and sorrow.
2- Never pose as if you are superior to your neighbor (even if you are)
3- Never mistreat your neighbor’s children but invite them to come to your home to present small gifts
4- Never talk ill about other neighbors of the society or colony that will lower your image
5- If any of your neighbors wants to involve you in ill talk about your other neighbors, tell them clearly that you do not want to indulge in such matters
6- You can plan outing with your neighbors to know each other better
7- Celebrate festivals and other functions together and never forget to initiate process of gifts associated with such occasions
8- Never interfere with personal affairs of your neighbors that will only create misunderstanding
9- You should be very careful that you are not going closer than comfort level of your neighbors; you must maintain a decent privacy level
10- Finally, be prepared to help your neighbors out of their problems.
Conclusion of my topic
You can have good or bad experiences about your neighbors but do not think for a moment that you are the only one who faces such difficult situations. It has become a common problem today although it existed in old times also, maybe to a lesser extent. People have not changed but their lifestyle has made them too busy to find time to mix up with neighbors. If husband and wife both are working, they are too tired or busy to spare time with neighbors and smallest pf provocation may find them in bad mood. They do not see any one beyond their own family and that makes them lesser popular. The fact is, you need time to develop relations and time seems to be eluding us all. To be very frank, this is true for every other relation but we can easily blame neighbors for such things compared to our closer relations.