I was one of the facilitators for a Semestral Inset training for 200 teachers and school administrators of Sibalom South District in Antique province. It was my first time to have an interaction with 200 teachers who came from 13 different schools and were beset with many administrative, economic and family challenges.
In one of the sessions, it readily appeared that their relationships were experiencing conflicts -and their roles as administrators and teachers were getting to be more difficult for all of them.
We are all in different relationships and in those relationships we may have different roles.
But have you ever wondered about the primacy of relationships over roles? Are you the type of person who is more defined by the roles you have rather than the relationships you have?
There are people whose relationships are defined by their roles. Such relationships exist because of a certain task, project, mission that needs to be accomplished. Roles make it easy for people to interact with each other. The boundaries are defined and the duration of the “relationship based on roles” are time bound. When conflicts arise, people who are defined by their roles will automatically ask for the clarification of their roles – as the basis of their relationships. This is quite common and frankly, quite sad. This almost sounds political – meaning, this relationship is almost always transactional. Once the transaction is done, the role is over and the relationship ends.
How about a better way? How about the other way? Is your role defined by your relationships? I submit to you that roles that are defined by relationships are more complicated – more messy, but it is more fulfilling.
People give us roles in their lives because of the relationships we have with them. We don’t have relationships just because of our assumed roles in their lives. We get into a messy, nurturing, intrusive and fullfilling relationships with them and they can grant us the roles which we want them to play in their lives. These roles that are defined by relationships – are more lasting, more fulfilling – and less transactional. Even when challenges come, when our tasks are done and we sit around with nothing left to do, our relationships stays.
I am reminded of my mentoring relationships with some of the young people. I am a mentor to several young people around the country. There are those who are mentored more regularly while there are some who have been “mentored” even from a distance.
Even when I am in a good relationships with them, I cannot assume that I am their mentor. Being a mentor is not my right or a role I can just assume simply because I am visible to them. To be their mentor is a privilege borne out of a relationship that several summer camps to build. Without the primary relationship as an older brother to a younger brother – any type of mentoring I would do without this primordial relationship is forced and at best short-lived.
And because of the relationships, mentoring roles were freely given, not freely assumed. I can cease to be a mentor, or my role as an influencer may shift as they grow older, but the relationship remains.
How about you? Have you assessed the people around you and the relationships you have with them? Is your relationship primarily based on your role and task?
A better definition of personhood is one that is defined by the nitty gritty, messy, instrusive, incarnational relationship.
