Emotional Attachments in our lives...

Emotional Attachment. Thats a word not to uncommonly used in romantic relationships. However, I have been thinking (!) and I actually think this term has a wider application. In fact a little bit of research on the web and you find tat some advertisers to want to create an emotional attachment to their brands and some websites create emotional attachments with their readers.

How do you define emotional attachment? I personally define emotional attachment as attaching one self to someone or something based on emotion in such a way that your emotions have a big impact on how you might make your decision regarding that "Something" or "someone".

I think if you look around, there are many examples of emotional attachment. The following are a series of examples ( to my mind) of emotional attachment or the power of emotional attachment:

1. Client Service: Client service in the retail market is the service you get through the cashier or through the helpers who might help you decide on a product. In essence, the quality of the product is what might matter in the end, but when the products are the same at two different locations, you would probably go to the place where you had a more freindly and pleasant encounter with the employees.
   
2. Romance: the most obvious and common example of emotional attachment. To like someone people do have to have an emotional attachment with that certain person. A lot of books on marriage elude to the loss of emotional attachment between spouses as a big factor in the failure of marriages. The emotional attachment between spouses could be through their common interests ( like kids, hobbies, etc), could just be the constant emotional expression of love between them, could be the common experiences ( good or bad) they have been through together. In other words there has to be something that helps the couple connect emotionally. This is where the interesting concept of Emotional infidelity might come in as well where an emotional attachment to a third person by one of the spouses could dangerously lead to trouble. The emotional infidelity with the third person would basically result in emotional attachment outside the marriage eventually risking the whole marriage itself through extra martial affairs.
3. Brands: As already mentioned, emotional attachment to a brand is a common marketing ploy. Something to trigger this attachment could be the fact that a super star you admire actually promotes this brand during ads.
   
4. Other relationships: Relationships with friends and family have emotion as a major basis for them. The basis of emotional attachment with siblings is the fact that you have seen their 'personal history' and know what they went though in their earlier lives. Better emotional attachment between children and their parents could be through the bonding that they have created through time spent over their lives. The less effective parents maybe the ones who invested minimum time when raising their kids hence making kids forming bonds with "others". A good way to increase emotional attachment may be through giving someone a gift which would help make them feel that they are emotionally important to you.
5. Power: The emotional attachment to the luxuries and influence you had as a result of your power.
   
6. Money and materials; Attachment to money and glittery things may be a result of the fact that you think your elevation in the eyes of people is a result of what you have or how much money you have. The attachment may be a result of the emotional images implanted in your mind when you were younger by those around you who made you think that your importance is only a result of money and what you have.
   
7. Work: Emotional attachment to your work or a project at work maybe a result of the passion you have for your work or maybe the money that motivates you or maybe the attachment you have to your boss or to the power that might come at work as a result of your work. I guess here is where a showdown between emotional attachment for the family vs the emotional attachment for work would take place.
   
8. Religion: Emotional attachment to religion in Islam could be to a religious group who treated you well, a group of people you tend to agree with, a mosque where people treat you well and so on. The height of emotional attachment in Islam would be to be attached to Allah and Prophet Muhammad ( peace be upon him). This emotional attachment may be true in different ways for different religions.
   

You have therefore seen the importance of emotional attachment in our lives.

Of course there may be other categories which you could be attached with as well.

Regardless--the point has been made.--emotional attachments are important!