Relationship with Brother - Essay Example

Abdullah alsubhi 3-3 Week 5 I chose my brother to work with me on this questionnaire. I have a strong personal relationship with him, and I think both of us think pretty much alike on many issues. As the stereotypical males are wont to do, we do not talk much about our feelings about each other, therefore, I wanted to know how he truly feels about me, and this questionnaire presented me with such an opportunity. Despite the fact that we know each other since my birth and that we have shared the same interests over 20 years, the task was much more difficult than what I expected it to be. We have been quite guarded about expressing our feelings, as I said earlier, and during the task I learnt that there are a lot of things that I did not know about him and his interest. This activity with him also showed me how he feels towards me actually, something I was very keen on learning. I consider my brother to be one of my closest friends; we share a very close bond, I feel; a bond that has existed ever since I can remember. We have always managed to share our experiences and emotions, although we are on a different plane, both age wise and psychologically. My brother is 6 years older than me and is a college graduate. He is currently employed and is a married man, who takes excellent care of his wife and kids. One big difference between me and him is that he always speaks his mind. It does not matter to him how bad and ugly the truth would sound like, he will always say it the way he sees it to be true. On the other hand, I am not so outspoken. I am quite shy and do not talk much; in fact I am one of those people who do not talk unless it is necessary. I am not an open person by nature; I always tend to keep my emotions inside. I do not permit anyone to try to read me or my emotions or to have me figured out, as they say. I am so closely guarded that I normally do not tell anyone about my emotions, whether they involve that person or anyone else for that matter. I have learned a lot about my brother and how he feels about me after undertaking this assignment. The strangest, or funniest in a way, and surprising thing that I have learned was when he answered a question by saying that he liked it a lot “when we do some crazy funny stuff to our other siblings.” I thought he would say that he liked the way we share our feelings or the way we trust each other. I did not expect him to say what he said. However, this was a pleasant surprise, it made me realize that my brother is a very fun loving sort of person and he, in a way, does not mind the fact that I am not open to him about my feelings, perhaps he even understand it. The most touching moment was when he said “I am afraid of losing you someday” as an answer for the question “what are you afraid of”. It made me realize how much I mean to him as a sibling, and how close we are to one another. It is true that we have a strong bond between us, however, that does not mean we never had any differences. But for fairness’ sake, we do not hold those differences to be a bone of contention between us; rather we resolve our differences quickly and move on. Perhaps we move on a bit too quickly from the fights, and do not take the time out to talk about it. We have, for instance, had a lot of fights with each other, though not once have we sat and discussed why we always fight. Whenever we fight, one of us starts apologizing and that is the end of the matter. We have never thought of sitting and talking about what caused those problems and/or fights in the first place. Through this assignment, I learned that after a fight, I have to tell him right away about the problem that I feel he is not realizing or recognizing; I have to tell him what the problem is and how I feel about it and that would result in us fighting less with each other. Another thing that I learned was that I do not, normally, let my brother take his time in answering my questions about him or an issue. I learned that I should let my brother say whatever he has to say to me on his own time, I should not pester him for an immediate answer because this annoys him. For example, one of the things he said he finds annoying about me is when I am asking him about something that he either does not want to answer at all, or is not ready to share it with his partner (me) at that moment in time. In order to have a continuous and good relationship, we need to be open to each other and to respect the wants and needs of one another. In fact, having a healthy relationship and also keeping it as healthy as it is, is a very hard task. All relationships require good communication, a sharing of feelings and thoughts, and most importantly a sharing of love. Without these components a relationship cannot flourish, and of course a lot of problems can arise due to this. The most novel thing that I have learned from this assessment is that my partner thinks that we have nothing in common which was a shock to me, since I always thought that we share a common outlook on things. However, my brother corrected me on this as, according to him, both of us do not share the same view of the world. Perhaps it is because I bottle my feelings and emotions inside that he feels I do not share his worldview, but in reality, I feel, I pretty much feel exactly the same as him on any given issue. Again, this brings me back to the point where I stated that all relationships need good communication. I learned that, at least in light of the statement given by my brother, I need to work on improving my communication skills so that I can tell at least those I hold dear to my heart just how I feel, not only about them, but about the world in general, so that no misunderstandings can arise between us. In conclusion, this assignment has affected me in many ways: it has opened my eyes on how much my relationship with my closest brother means to me, how deep our relationship is, what bothers us, what we find annoying, what we are afraid of, and what is common between us. Moreover, as a consequence of this assignment, we have decided to improve our relationship – something both of us have agreed to work together to achieve. In essence, this assignment has given me a new outlook to my relationship with my brother and its importance not only to me but also to my brother. Read More