RELATIONSHIPS

Leonard Syme, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley, indicates the importance of social ties and social support systems in relationship to mortality and disease rates. He points to Japan as being number one in the world with respect to health and then discusses the close social, cultural, and traditional ties in that country as the reason. He believes that the more social ties, the better the health and the lower the death rate. Conversely, he indicates that the more isolated the person, the poorer the health and the higher the death rate. Social ties are good preventative medicine for physical problems and for mental-emotional-behavior problems. 

Martin & Diedre Bobgan, How To Counsel From Scripture, Moody Press, 1985, p. 18.

If you think your family has problems, consider the marriage mayhem created when 76-year-old Bill Baker of London recently wed Edna Harvey. She happened to be his granddaughter's husband's mother. That's where the confusion began, according to Baker's granddaughter, Lynn.

"My mother-in-law is now my step-grandmother. My grandfather is now my stepfather-in-law. My mom is my sister-in-law and my brother is my nephew. But even crazier is that I'm now married to my uncle and my own children are my cousins." 

From this experience, Lynn should gain profound insight into the theory of relativity. 

Campus Life, March, 1981, p. 31.

We can live only in relationships. We need each other. A rather crude and cruel experiment was carried out by Emperor Frederick, who ruled the Roman Empire in the thirteenth century. He wanted to know what man's original language was: Hebrew, Greek, or Latin? He decided to isolate a few infants from the sound of the human voice. He reasoned that they would eventually speak the natural tongue of man. Wet nurses who were sworn to absolute silence were obtained, and though it was difficult for them, they abided by the rule. The infants never heard a word -- not a sound from a human voice. Within several months they were all dead. 

Joe E. Trull.

The Carnegie Technological Institute has stated that 90% of all people who fail in their life's vocation fail because they cannot get along with people. 

Lloyd Perry, Getting the Church on Target,  Moody, 1977.

On Getting Along With People

The SIX most important words:

"I admit I made a mistake."

The FIVE most important words:

"You did a good job."

The FOUR most important words:

"What do you think?"

The THREE most important words:

"After you please."

The TWO most important words:

"Thank you."

The ONE most important word:

"We"

The LEAST important word:

"I"

Source Unknown.

Ten Commandments of Human Relations

1. Speak to people. There is nothing as nice as a cheerful word of greeting.

2. Smile at people. It takes seventy-two muscles to frown, only fourteen to smile.

3. Call people by name. Music to anyone's ears is the sound of his/her own name.

4. Be friendly and helpful.

5. Be cordial. Speak and act as if everything you do is genuinely a pleasure, and if it isn't, learn to make it so.

6. Be genuinely interested in people. You can like almost everybody if you try.

7. Be generous with praise, cautious with criticism.

8. Be considerate with the feelings of others. There are usually three sides to a controversy: yours, the other fellow's, and the right one.

9. Be alert to serve. What counts most in life is what we do for others.

10. Add to this a good sense of humor, a big dose of patience, and a dash of humility, and you will be rewarded manifold through life. 

Adapted from the Bible Tract Bulletin.

Single men are jailed more often, earn less, have more illnesses and die at a younger age than married men. Married men with cancer live 20% longer than single men with the same cancer.

Women, who often have more close friendships than men, survive longer with the same cancers. Married or not, relationships keep us alive. 

Dr. Bernie Siegel, Homemade, May, 1989.