Good Morning my dear friends, the holiday spirit is catching on and the Christmas decorations are being put up all around. It surely gives a very cheerful feeling to usher in the last week of December 2021 & welcome Santa Claus.
Normally holiday time is family time – a time to spend those precious moments with your family and friends, your near & dear ones and to make beautiful memories which will last you a lifetime. We all have groups of friends, special ones, whom we have been friends for ages, most since childhood. And such friends are like your extended family because you feel comfortable with them and share everything with them just as your family members.
But sometimes in such a close group of friends, one or two friends wander away. They stop being a part of the group actively and slowly start losing touch. Since they are like your extended family, every member of the group is important and who would like to lose a member of their family? So today I am going to narrate a small story in this context, source is again from the forwarded messages which we receive and which sometimes turn out to be excellent gems of advice.
So the story goes that there was a man who regularly attended family and group meetings, suddenly without any notice, stopped participating. He did not contact anyone nor did he intimate anyone about anything and simply stopped coming. A few weeks passed and there was no sign of him coming back or any other news about him and his well-being. So after a few weeks, one very cold night, the leader of the group decided to visit him
He found the man at home, alone, sitting in front of a fireplace where a bright fire burned. The man welcomed the leader. There was great calm & silence. The two men quietly sat and only watched the dancing flames around the logs that crackled in the fireplace. After a few minutes the leader, without saying a word, examined the logs that formed the fire and selected one of them, glowing most brightly of all, and removed it to the side with a pair of tongs. Then he sat down again.
The host was paying attention to everything, fascinated. Before long, the lone log’s flame subsided, until there was only a momentary glow and the fire soon went out. In a short time what was previously bright light and heat had become nothing more than a black dead piece of wood.
Very few words had been spoken since the greeting. Before preparing to leave, the leader picked up the useless piece of wood with the tongs and placed it again in the middle of the fire. Immediately, the piece of wood was rekindled, fuelled by the light and heat of the burning logs around it. When the leader was about to leave & had reached the door, the host said: “Thank you for your visit and for your beautiful lesson. I’ll return to the group soon”.
Why is a group important in our lives? Very simple: Because each member that withdraws takes fire and heat from the rest. It’s worth reminding group members that, they are a part of the flame. It’s also good to remind us that we are all responsible for keeping each other’s flame burning. And we must promote the union among us so that the fire is really strong, effective and lasting. Keep the fire burning !!!
The group is also like a family. It doesn’t matter if sometimes we are bothered by lack of unity or small misunderstandings or quarrels over petty issues, what matters is that the group is always connected. Groups exist for the purpose of meeting, learning, exchanging ideas, feelings, emotions, share good and bad times and nostalgia or simply to let each other know that you are not alone.
So to all of us, I am sure all of us are part of some group or the other and all of us have sometimes or the other lost touch. This holiday season, let us all consciously make an effort to reignite that flame of affection and attachment and get in touch with our groups again and try to keep the flame alive and burning.
Dr. Rajesh Mankani
