Thank God for choices we can make

We cannot chose a family to be born in, or have parents or relatives of our liking but we sure can chose friends and acquaintances. I am personally very grateful to Allah for that. I grew up like anyone else in a large family; loving and trusting everyone in the immediate and extended family. I got back lots of love from my family - always! Most of my relatives have been nice to me. There are some I was very close to. I trusted him, her and them. Some amongst them took sides when push came to shove; theirs, and that of others in their family. I wanted to be above all this. I was not seeking love of these relatives. I just wanted for sense of propriety to prevail first and foremost.
I moved on. I chose for myself a different location to live and work in. I wanted to be on my own for rich or for poor and for better or for worse. I married someone outside my ethnicity and far removed from the land I called home.
I chose and chose and chose. It is choices that we make or not make that shape or destroy our lives. It is much like the fights we chose to fight and we only chose to fight those that we think we can win.
I decided that if life has to go on without having to worry about family ties and squabbles, I have to make lots of choices. I have made many, and many more I still have to make. I am allowed to select and discard and not have to live with it whether I like it or not. Again thank God for life's gift of being able to chose.
There is nothing wrong in living with the family and relatives. Unfortunately, when you have family ties, it is like a corporate world; who gets to be the CEO, CFO and the chairman of the board and who gets left out. Some amongst the relatives declare themselves to be the movers and shakers and some just shake at the sight of these bullies. There are still others who don't make beyond the mail room. And, the chairman gets the naming right to the family very much like the largest tenant of an office building.
This is all a bit too much for me. I like the wind in my hair. I did most of my learning in a boarding school. One thing I always reminded myself of is that money isn't everything that my mind should aspire to make. I made plenty and there are remnants of that still there in things that I own but not much care for. I don't want money to be the only thing I leave behind in this world. I wanted the least bit of distraction to grow my mind and my interests into other things such as parenting, reading, writing, poetry, music, photography, cooking, etc. I knew that I could not master all but if I made it to be the Jack in some of my pursuits, that was good enough by me. For all this, I needed a mind that feeds on calm...and zero family intrigues.
I treat everyone equally and not be respectful or disrespectful due to his or her position in the family. I am not a rebel but perhaps I have been perceived as one. So be it!
I was copied on an email just this evening by someone in my family. We were very close a long time back. It has been maybe well over a decade that we have not communicated. This time around, I chose not to respond. It maybe considered very petty of me but, it'd be very upsetting in all its consequences -- going into the future. It may be all my fault but that is a chance I am not ready to take -- all things considered. I have much less wealth of time left to risk it. And that is me! Time is my most precious commodity and next comes piece of mind.
Besides, I cannot forget that it was an evening very much like this when I decided to bring down the shutters around me to save myself from being, yes, petty.

A shrinking or an ever expanding world...thanks to technology?

I had my family over for nearly four days and now they are gone. They went back home to the USA. Same time my daughter went away last night for seven months to Chicago to further her studies. Only my son is at home.
I met my brother and other relatives after nearly a decade if not more. He is into his late sixties, and the rest are just about that age. I don't know if I am going to see them again any time soon.
This makes me wonder if technology has made any positive impact on our lives or, on the contrary, it has thrown us far and wide and kept us so busy that we simply get to see each other only on few occasions in our life time -- if we are lucky. It is not shrinking the world but it is removing us from loved ones -- all in the name of progress.
I am not a progressive person. I want to sit across from a loved one instead of facing a screen or speaking into a mouth piece. Yes, more and more people are turning to tele-conferencing or texting since they cannot afford to travel and meet each other as often as they would like to. If this is the future of all our social existence in time to come, give me the good old world any time -- sans technology.