Relationships

It is difficult to come to an agreement on this subject, even though it is one that we all deal with at some time in our lives. The greatest problem is that so many people are mixed up about so much in their life that something as fundamental and powerful as being loved and loving others is beyond them-and this goes double for those struggling to simply survive. On the hierarchy of needs, food beats love every time. By this I mean a person has to be very secure in order to really love another, and being worried about where one’s next meal is or what another person thinks is not a very secure foundation. Even after settling one's life by meeting those basic needs, one still has to gain experience with the subject. By this, I mean that thinking about something and actually doing it are very different experiences. People often fantasize about relationships, but those are idealized to minimize effort for maximum rewards-as all fantasies are; real relationships are not like that, they are all work. Further, to do something well always takes practice, yet we are told that we will simply get this "right" the first time! Supposedly the first time we fall in love, we will have found the person with whom we spend the rest of our lives. Also, evidently, making friends and getting along with fellow students, coworkers, etc., is natural, because we aren’t taught how to make those connections either. After this fantasy we finally come to the reality of it: when we have relationships, we fumble and fail-as we should. The best way to learn something is still to do it. Inevitably we get hurt, we make those mistakes with our relationships. Friends come and go, family is estranged, marriages end; all these things are symptoms of our deficiency. Still we improve over time, each failure teaches us something we need to know. If people truly wanted to avoid these hurts, then we would actually teach the inexperienced what they need to know. There is an old adage, “No [person] is an island.” the problem being that everyone is an island in that we have no natural emotional connection to others. We need to form attachments, even between family, between parents and offspring. This is meant in two different ways: first we “need” to do it because it is important for our well being, and secondly because it isn’t automatic, it does require effort. Finally, what sort of relationships are we forming? Are they strong, healthy ones or are they made from desperation, just to meet our need for companionship? It can be very difficult to tell, unless we examine how it makes us feel. Are you lost without your mate? Does your world revolve around the status of your relationship? Do you feel like you don’t deserve the relationship? Do you sacrifice yourself to maintain the relationship? If you answered, “yes” to any of these questions, you may want to seriously look at what you want out of your life and the relationship you are in. Always remember, you cannot Love another until you Love yourself.