Q. I just turned 19 and don’t have a very good handle on choosing relationships, and on prioritizing their position in my life. Any ideas?

A. One of life’s continuing challenges involves managing relationships appropriately and effectively. Your relative success will be impacted by a variety of factors including the degree of development of your brain, the way in which you perceive your relationships, and your level of actualization / differentiation / functionality. I encourage you at your age to evaluate a variety of relationships. Be very careful about making major, life-impactful decisions prior to your mid-twenties when your pre-frontal lobes should be developed.

I have found it extremely useful to assign relationships to one of four categories. This process can help you increase your awareness and manage your relationships more consciously. It can help you to avoid unrealistic expectations or reduce a human tendency to take things personally, especially when people move in and out of your life by choice, or circumstances, or move from one category to another. It can help you respond to death with equanimity (e.g., potentially you are expected to outlive your parents as well as some of your siblings, many of your extended family members, and some of your friends). These are my group descriptions:

Group #1 – Relationships that continue for a lifetime (e.g., for as long as you live or as long as they live). They are in your life to provide you with lifetime lessons; concepts you need to understand and build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. All things being equal, they will be with you through thick and thin, through good times and sad, in health and in illness. This includes the relationship you have with yourself (e.g., the quality of the relationship you have with yourself impacts all other relationships you develop on this planet, you tend to treat others the way you treat yourself). Remember, no one person can teach you everything, only what he or she has learned.

Group #2 – Relationships that continue for a season (e.g., from several months to many years). They are in your life because they can help you grow and learn. They can teach you something you never knew before, help you laugh, and bring you unbelievable amounts of joy and even peace. But they will not always be with you in tangible presence, although you can always have them with you in memory.

Group #3 – Relationships that occur for a specific reason (e.g., days to months). They come into your life to help you through a difficult situation, or to assist you physically, emotionally, or spiritually. They may arrive in answer to a prayer, request, or expressed need. Then, without any conscious act on your part, and sometimes at an inconvenient time from your perspective, they will walk away, move on, die, or exhibit behaviors that force you to set your boundaries and take a stand.

Group #4 – Relationships that are somewhat casual (e.g., can drift in or out of your life, are generally infrequent, may be somewhat superficial). This doesn’t mean that they are not important in the big scheme of things, but they may occur only as a one-time event. They may give you a key piece of information, or role-model gracious functionality in a difficult situation, or prompt you to alter your behavior in some way because you observed what did or didn’t work.