If you try to identify what matters most to humans, the first things on the list will probably be the obvious and easy to identify and basic: air to breath, food, water, and something to wear, especially when it gets hot or cold.

Relationships may see less obvious at first but connections with other humans has an important impact on the development of meaning in our lives.

Human touch, the way people treat each other, is said to be something most people want because it helps to nurture feelings of trust and connectedness. Studies show it is not only wanted but needed and makes a difference in a person’s life.

As humans, the relationships we form with other people are vital to our mental and emotional well being, and really, our survival. The most important relationship in your life, is the one you have with yourself. Others can come and go but you will always be with you. This does not diminish the value of relationships with other but offers direction because knowing how you would like to be treated is a guide to how to treat others.

Our relationships throughout our life are important, but determining how important may be subjective. A business needs relationships and connections to survive but humans seem to assume that they should be able to choose the relationships in their life, at least most of them.

Money is certainly a preference and is necessary to various degrees and for some it may be possible that they have a relationship with their money and possessions.

Looking at this overview of items leads to asking the question as to what would our life sum up to have been if we died and then lived on in a spiritual form? For some it would only be a hope that they would live on, but if they did it is obvious that many things on the list we made would not go with them. If humans live on in a spiritual form then memories, relationships, intelligence, and knowledge are things that might stay with them. Those items then ought to be the things that are moved to the top of the list of what matters.

Knowledge would be something that would go with us into this next life because if we, what we consider our self, continues to exist then knowledge would be required to continue that existence to actually be ourselves.

Relationships and connections with others are as much a part of who we are as our knowledge is so it seems logical that those contacts would be remembered and perhaps sought out.

A conclusion at this point is that connections and relationships do matter and would be near the very top of the list because they become a part of us that continues on and would be a part of our spiritual existence, continuing on in our memory. Experiences and knowledge are enhanced and made more clear and useful though our relationships.