We are not alone. Made to live in society, we always have someone around: for a chat or to do business, to discuss or lend a hand, to offer and receive friendship and love.
by Vito Viganò
È although it is true that sometimes you have to relate to those you would not like to meet, those who are annoying or have bad intentions. But without a doubt the advantages of living in society far outweigh any possible discomforts, risks and troubles. Being and acting with others triggers lively dynamics in living personal values. Even if chosen and guarded in the depths, these need to be put into practice and in this way become manifest and perceptible even for those who live with us.
Values and social context
Being with others becomes the theater in which each one, with his own ways of doing things, reveals what he believes in, what matters in his life. Working to create the desired quality of life means showing and highlighting the character that we feel we are. In the theater, the performance is successful if the different actors are coordinated, according to a shared script. In human coexistence, things get complicated by the different ways of living one's values, of reciting one's own "script". Even though we are all equipped with the same humanity, even though we are ultimately attracted by the same things, each of us has a unique and original way of dedicating ourselves to what we consider most useful and right. This can generate understanding and complicity, but also divergences and open contrasts. When different ways of living personal values come into conflict, these become the greatest cause of suffering and trouble in coexistence. But at the same time the presence of others leads us to a more faithful practice of our values.
Values and relationships
In social life, there is a need to create relationships with people who are significant for interest or love, who thus stand out from the mass of perfect strangers we meet every day. At first, bonds arise from fairly unstable instinctive factors: a spontaneous attraction, a liking, a sentimental enticement or something else. They become stronger and deeper when a consonance arises in sharing certain values, for example if you love nature or travel, if you practice a sport or yoga or when you are active in the Christian community or in a particular group. You need to discover in the other at least a little of what we consider valid in our hearts. A couple, based on love or business, cannot last long if there is no harmony, if there are no reasons to be together, if there are no common interests or shared activities. In couples in crisis, a bitter realization often emerges: "We have nothing more to share." It means that each person's soul is now oriented toward different things, or perhaps just toward different ways of practicing the same values. The reasons that once made us feel like allies and accomplices in a common life project no longer work.
Event
of values
Dedicating yourself to your values creates the context to reveal yourself and show a little of your inner self. You are under the eye of spectators and usually we do not mind feeling observed, because we always live the expectation of being considered, perhaps appreciated, perhaps loved. We demand respect for our personal forms of expression and even seek the complicity of others in what is valuable to us. If others appreciate and share what we care about, there is a confirmation of the goodness of our life choices. But showing off our personal values sometimes makes us feel reticent and cautious, worried about not letting what we experience in our innermost being show. We do not dare to publicly expose our religious faith, a political profession, the personal attention we put in place to safeguard our health. More than the values themselves, it is rather the concrete ways of exercising them that create difficulties and reticence for us, when it is assumed that they are not shared or aligned with the official or most popular ones.
Values and reliability
From an intimate reality, values become visible when we put them into practice. We all have a “sophisticated” mental ability, called Theory of mind, which allows us to trace back from the concrete forms of action to what people have inside, their orientations, their intentions, the feelings they are experiencing. But this is a skill to be used with caution, because it is easy to risk attributing our experiences to others. Yet it is a skill that works and allows us to make hypotheses about what the other believes, considers important or essential to his good life.
Furthermore, when observing the behavior of others, one also exercises a skilled critical sense that makes comparisons between the observed practice and the inner truths that one believes the person being examined has. Instinctively, one becomes very demanding in evaluating the coherence and integrity of the actions of others.
After all, for a relationship to have a suitable duration and quality, it is important to evaluate the harmony between doing and being. This confirms that the person is reliable: you are coherent, you are true, I can trust what you say, what you promise, the feelings you show: I can be calm, it is nice to be with you.
