Life is basically a journey. It is a journey in our chaotic and confusing world, a journey that is replete with painful episodes. This is a stark reality and we cannot escape from this reality. Our everyday life is divided into two broad parts: Family life and Professional life. Although happenings in professional life impact our family life, we, however, overlook the fact that healthy growth in professional life equally depends on the happenings in our family life. A turbulent and gloomy atmosphere in a family will sap the vitality of every member. And this can badly affect the performance and output of the professionals because they may not be in the right frame to concentrate fully on their professional work.
Our family life is filled with many problems. We experience good, bad and terrible moments. Some people have high maturity and mental strength to face unpleasantness and turbulent states. So, when they move forward with the compulsions of daily life and become busy with routine work, everything again gets normal to them. For others, it may become an uphill battle, particularly when their tumultuous state of life prolongs and they see no end to this state. We can trace the origin of this agonising state of life to the events in domestic life. There are so many cases involving our family life which have consequent unfavourable knock-on effects on professional life.
However, it can be the other way around. In some families, it is the wife who is the source of trouble. Her irrational behaviour, tough responses and constant combative mood turn the everyday life of a gentle husband into an endless source of punishment. If it is a constant part of life, sadness grips the afflicted husband, which eventually can turn into a major depressive illness. So, for the husband and wife at fault, this is a self-inflicted painful life for them. Both suffer in their personal and professional life. With a seriously disturbed family life, they cannot deliver their best in their office life.
Another source of trouble in family life is the relationship between the parents and their children. Today's children are creative, smart and talented but mentally disturbed. They get affection and financial support from their parents, but not the required amount of attention and mental support. Today, our ongoing mechanical and materialistic life has made parents busy with their professional, business and cultural life. They hardly allocate a good amount of time for free and relaxed interaction with their children which keeps these children seriously disheartened. They feel a strong sense of loss in their life which affects their healthy growth. Eventually, these depressed children might get engaged in undesirable activities (e.g. Abnormal social media addiction, drug addiction, becoming a gang member, resorting to gun violence, etc.) that not only destroy their peaceful normal life but also bring disaster for the entire family.
There is another dismal aspect of the parent-and-child relationship that needs to be pointed out. This is true that all parents have a tremendous love for their children, but some of them have the instinct always to be right in every issue involving family life. They seriously lack the much-needed flexibility in life. They don't give a patient listening to their children nor are they willing to accept the views of their children. They always love to impose their decisions on them. This becomes another potential source of conflict in family life.
All is said and done, but we should not forget that today's children, unknowingly, contribute to the disruption of a tranquil and peaceful family environment. They think they are no more little kids and understand everything much better than others in the family. In the process, they nakedly ignore the valuable opinions and suggestions of their respected parents. Their constant fun-loving approach to life moulded by social media and peer pressure makes them quite arrogant. They sometimes even become disrespectful to their parents. This certainly is a constant source of pain and anguish to loving parents. Today's parents are captive to the whims and wishes of their children. Apart from the above instances, peace and stability in family life might be disrupted because of several other endogenous reasons. Whatever may be the reasons for the instability in family life, it will subsequently affect professional life.
So let's face the facts of life with honesty and courage. Our family should be a constant source of mental energy and stamina to face the complex world; it should be an energy-boosting tool. If our family life is not in good shape, other parts of our life, particularly our professional life, will certainly be affected. Consequently, a sloppy and substandard performance in the profession is likely to occur. This will damage the business interests of the organisation, besides damaging the career progress of the professionals. Therefore, it is wise to fix the sources of instability in family life and have the courage to take a bit of soul-searching to rectify our actions, reactions and responses and underwrite tranquillity in family life and prosperity in professional life. Let's end our information with the famous statement of George A. Moore, an Irish poet, "A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it".
M. ASHIQ, a former teacher at Scholastica and Sunbeams
