HOW LONELY WILL YOUR GRANDCHILDREN BE?

In my years of growing up I never heard my grandparents say that they were lonely. During most of my adult life I did not hear any serious discussion about loneliness. But in the past ten years we have heard serious medical reports that ‘loneliness is as determinantal to your health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.” There has been no scientific or medical position that rejects that observation. 

 

Can loneliness be that serious a threat to our healtl?

 

Loneliness is not accidental. We humans can enter lifestyles that lead us into an existence where we do not feel that we are wanted. We can become so isolated that no one picks up their phone to ask how we are.  We may go to work five days a week but who breaks into smiles when we come back to work in the morning or asks us out for coffee on a statutory holiday? 

 

One executive who worked for one of our large banking corporations spelt it out this way. “It like this. You count like this. Stick your finger in a pail of water. Pull your finger out of the water. The water will never remember that you were even there!” You count for so little!

 

How can our grandchildren prepare themselves to enter into a lonely adult life? 

 

Be strongly individualistic. You are on your own and you have got to make it through life on your own strength and your own wits. Move where the job promotion and salaries are most beneficial to your future. This is all about your survival and you must thrive on your own.

 

Do not belong to any volunteer or service organizations. There are almost no one of these groups functioning and the ones that still exist are all composed of grey hairs.

 

Only support those groups, such as unions and career related organizations  that will benefit you personally. Work with these groups only as long as they serve your future career prospects.

 

Wherever your house is located do not make an effort to know or connect with your neighbors. We can all look after ourselves; do not allow your neighbors to cause you any stress.

 

Remember in an individualistic society it is all about your well-being. Try to avoid any sense of responsibility for your fellow human man. 

 

Things will only change when people feel the pain of loneliness and isolation. Our grandchildren will need to rediscover how essential it is to care about our fellow human being and be connected. We will only thrive if we are responsible for each other.

 

Here is where the Church needs to rediscover that it is meant to be a community, a faith family where people feel they belong and are wanted. We must reach out to help people rediscover what it means to belong. We need to rediscover what it means that we are meant to belong to the much greater reality, our God!