This Land of Strangers: by Robert E. Hall
The Relationship Crisis That Imperils Home, Work, Politics, and Faith.
From the cover:
An examination of the society-wide relationship crisis that threatens us all—and a strategic look at how we can reverse it.
It is the crisis that everyone feels but that has gone unnamed. We see the pieces: families disintegrating; communities in chaos; businesses losing the trust of customers and employees; political and religious discourse that sows dysfunction and divide. Yet until now, no one has connected the dots that reveal the larger narrative. Our broken relationships have a death grip on economic, political, and social advancements that capitalism, democracy, social programs, and tax policy have been unable to break. Cumulatively this crisis feeds an emerging caste system: Individuals and organizations that possess superior relationships have, while those with deteriorating relationships are destined to have not. In This Land of Strangers, Robert Hall lays the crisis bare, and you will be shocked at the magnitude of destruction he reveals.
Why should you read this book?
In today’s world, it’s easy to withdraw from society. It’s easy to embrace individualism. But this has a cost. Robert Hall looks at modern life through the prism of relationships. He challenges readers to embrace three aims that will reverse the forces that gave birth to today's land of strangers to usher in a new era--the Age of Relationship.
Excerpts:
“Despite our progress in research, technology, social programs, medicine, and living standards, something is profoundly wrong. Our relationship dysfunction is casting growing segments of our society into a perpetual spiral of destruction and poverty.
A speaker I once heard asked his audience what word in the English language had the strongest positive resonance. The answer was “home.” Home serves as the base for family, friends, and community…The ideal of home is the place where family, friends, or community treasures and develops you in spite of fights, faults, and tensions. Home is both the “people” and the “place” where precious relationships reside and we matter.”
“One of the most common circumstances preceding homelessness is the lack or breakdown of not only family relationships but also friendships. Such breakdowns can push a distressed family over the edge. Some individuals and families have no people to whom they can turn. Others have imposed on their friends and relatives until those individuals reached a breaking point. When these concerned people can no longer provide a loan, child care, or lodging, families spiral down to homelessness.
All of us are subject to reaching places in our lives where we are socially, emotionally, economically, or even spiritually homeless—places where we are estranged and separated, in need of love, advice, help, and other forms of relational support that help us find our way “home.” Our relationships are our lifelines.”
“If we seek to understand the underlying source of our relational decline, there is no better way to begin than to look at the new, rising star of the 21st century—“ME.” An ever-expanding culture of consumerism has encouraged us to focus on ourselves: what we want, what we deserve, what we are entitled to, and having it our way. As we have focused more on ourselves, of course, we have focused far less on our relationships…
Consumerism represents a triumph for freedom: freedom of markets, freedom of production, freedom of consumption, and freedom from oppressive governments. We are big on freedom. Our country was formed on an explicit appeal to freedom and has flourished because of its productive power.
Most of us are strong believers in the marketplace and celebrate the abundant choices it presents us with. Yet, as consumerism has grown and become extreme, there is the growing risk of unintended consequences that make us relationally selfish and enslaved in a way that deprives us socially, emotionally, and eventually even economically. Self-absorbed and obsessed by what we merely want, we leave little room for what we desperately need—our relationships.”
“For those tempted to make money the center of their lives, financial writer Scott Burns shared this wisdom from one of his readers: “You know you are rich when more money won't change where you live, what you eat, what you drive, or who you sleep with.”
It is easy to interpret that quote to mean that you have enough money when, even if you got more, you would not change your life. I think a more substantive interpretation is that when we give relationships a higher value, we are less likely to be subordinated and twisted by worship of money, status, or power, which so often leads to destruction. We live happier, more productive lives when relationships are a key source of our riches. Longer-term it may be better for us economically, to boot.
You have probably heard the adage “the person who is rich is the person who knows he has enough.” Making relationships a priority means being full of gratitude for who—not just what—we have.”
About the Author
Robert Hall is a noted author, consultant, and speaker on relationships. As cofounder and CEO of a 200-person relationship management firm with offices in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, U.K., South Africa, and Australia, he consulted for 20-plus years with major corporations on customer and employee relationships. For the past decade, Hall has mentored inner-city homeless families and helped pioneer a relationship-centric model for addressing homelessness. He has authored 100-plus published columns, articles, and research papers on the topic of relationships.