Currently Listening Something More By Ginny Owens see related

today i read something pretty disturbing..

Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago, and a sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States.

A quarter of Americans say they have no one with whom they can discuss personal troubles, more than double the number who were similarly isolated in 1985. Overall, the number of people Americans have in their closest circle of confidants has dropped from around three to about two.

The comprehensive new study paints a sobering picture of an increasingly fragmented America, where intimate social ties -- once seen as an integral part of daily life and associated with a host of psychological and civic benefits -- are shrinking or nonexistent. In bad times, far more people appear to suffer alone.

WOW! it went on to say that 50% of those that have people to share with identify their spouse as the one and only person they can confide in. Knowing that relationships keep us healthy psychologically, this is a sobering prospect. I am just thinking how amazing my friends are...and reminding myself to intentionally cultivate those relationships. They give us the essence of life. Without them we would be functionig invisibly...in a vaccum. With no context, we have no base for interpreting joy or pain.