Can Feelings Ever Achieve Closure?
It occurs to me that ‘closure’ has become a very modern emotional expectation; when a job or a relationship ends, someone dies or another bad personal experience; a kind of imagined right has developed in our psyche that we deserve to have resolution in every situation. Is this in fact reasonable, or even achievable? The social media led ‘feelings reign over facts,’ show us, if we chose to view, 24-7 people setting out their side of a story, inviting those viewing to give vindication, to gain a kind of ‘closure’ from likes and comments. If you have ever been in a situation with someone arguing that they ‘felt’ your actions indicated something that you did not in fact indicate, you will know what I mean.
Proving a negative when people’s feelings are involved is a no- win situation. A relatively gentle example is of the childhood sibling rivalry when, confronted by parents, and the ‘she said/he said’ was all that stood before you and possible punishment, it wasn’t provable either way, but you were both seeking to be right as the misunderstood party. In this example ‘feeling’ it was unfair cut no ice whatever had been said or meant, but closure was achieved as usually both siblings were likely punished equally.
We can of course find an entire range of self-help books to explore closure over our emotional life dramas, but really closure can only be something we give ourselves. It certainly took me the greater part of my life to let go of the fact that my mother did not love me, or my siblings. Yes, we did deserve to be loved and cared for, but the fact was we were not and our feelings otherwise were just ruining our own lives, she did not consider that she was unloving nor would she talk about it. My mother died of dementia several years ago by which time I had already forgiven her and let it go.
When my close friend and business partner was dying, we were able to release any lingering issues we may both have had from our many years together that involved a number of arguments and slamming doors. None of it mattered, who was right, then or now, but to be able to spend time with each other to talk over the good days and the funny incidents was more valuable than anything else. I really miss him, but my memories are all good. I would have been sad not to had have this time, but I did not need it for closure of our relationship.
People dying is of course the most fixed situation if one is searching for resolution and closure, you may be too late for it, but todays closure aims requires that people pursue the result they want endlessly until the other party concedes or they just take themselves out of reach.
One thing I have learnt from my decades of working in the corporate world is that if there are five people in a meeting, there will be five different outcomes and opinions. Four people to be offended, or offended on someone else’s behalf, (another absurd self- aggrandising 21st century focus on ‘feelings’ rather than fact) from the meeting itself and then perhaps another opportunity to rile themselves up once the meeting notes have been written. If I had a pound for every time someone said “I felt” to a point of fact in a business meeting I would be on the rich list for sure.
And this had been a surprise for me, that men were just as guilty of the ‘feelings taking precedence over fact’ as women. Call me a cave woman, but if a man wants to express his feelings, then the workplace is not appropriate any more than for a woman, and when did we stop being able to rely on men as logical and fact focussed?