PILLARS OF A RELATIONSHIP – PART-VII

     Now that we’ve discussed all the factors in detail, we’ve reached the end of the long series of posts. I guess there is not much I can say here than what I’ve already said. Every relationship out there is unique in its own skin and the same lid may not fit every jar. Like I said, every law has its exception. But remember, not all of us are exceptions even though we tend to think that we are as different from the person next to us as we are to cats and dogs.

     A relationship is a wonderful thing. It can either be a beautiful plant that blooms every day or a misplaced cactus on your seat based on how you nurture it. Every plant needs sunlight, water, air, earth and care on varying quantities; sometimes not all of these, based on where they grow. The same goes for any relationship as well. Honesty, Trust, Respect, Friendship and Love are the primary factors that control every relationship. There are other factors of life we all know that affect any relationship such as career, ambition or several conflict of interests but none affect a relationship like ‘The Five’ we’ve been discussing about.

     The most important thing to remember in any relationship is that a double-edged sword hurts both ways and anything that you do affects both sides in a relationship. As the famous Assassin’s Creed quote says, ‘To say that Everything is Permitted is to understand that we are the architects of our actions and that we must live with their consequences, whether glorious or tragic’. You can be selfish sometimes, hell, you should be selfish sometimes. Our human nature demands it. However, if it will affect the other person negatively, it is necessary to go through things together.

     There is a quote I fondly remember. I don’t remember if I wrote it first or if I read it somewhere and it stuck in my head. ‘It doesn’t matter where you go but with whom you go’. We all have some end goal that we have in our mind, some of us reach it and some of us don’t. Whatever it is, ‘we only live as long as the last person who remembers us’. That’s ‘Westworld’ for you. Is the destination worth it if you have no one to share it with? We are called ‘social animals’ for a reason.

     As humans, we make mistakes. A lot of it in our lifetime. That doesn’t necessarily make us bad. What makes us bad is our inability to correct ourselves. I would tell the same thing to you. Since all of us are prone to mistakes, give the other person a chance to correct themselves. If you value the relationship more, give them second, third or even a fourth chance. After all, forgiveness makes us more human and binds the relationship stronger than ever.

     However, that doesn’t mean you need to keep giving chances to someone that does not value the many second chances you give them. Remember the five necessary things in a relationship that we’ve discussed about and if the other person doesn’t value the same even after giving multiple chances, maybe they value themselves more than the relationship. In that case, continuing the relationship may end up being toxic to at least one of the partners.

     I’ve seen several relationships fail due to the inability to commit a 100% into the relationship. Any relationship needs both the wheels to run and it doesn’t matter if only one person commits completely and the other person just uses the relationship to meet their personal gains. Love is more about giving than taking but it has to be mutual. If it is one-sided, the relationship starts deteriorating, sometimes slowly, barely noticeable but dying nonetheless.

     We all make sacrifices for our loved ones and when its mutual, it doesn’t seem that big a deal to put the other person’s interest before ours. In a relationship, it’s not just enough for one person to work for the best of the relationship. You need both parties equally working towards it, failure of which will either destroy the person or the relationship.

PILLARS OF A RELATIONSHIP – PART-VI

     Well, we are down to the last factor on our list. If you’ve taken the time to read all my previous posts and are here now, there could only be one reason. You really think I’ve been honest so far, trust me enough to read through, respect my views, consider my words a friendly advice and well, love me. Guess we are in a relationship after all.

     If you’ve truly read through all my prior posts on this topic, you should understand by now why I came at the list in reverse and why honesty stands at the top of the list. Honesty truly defines any relationship whether you agree or not. Have you ever gotten close to someone that you think is lying through their teeth for their own gains? No, I think not. Even if they were lying and we were naïve enough to think that the truth, that is the only way we trust and get closer to the liars.

     But does that last? In every person’s life, there is someone we trusted blindly until we saw the truth about them and boy, was that truth ugly. The fallout is even worse that we cannot even look at their face without thinking about all the lies they fed us. The constant wonder of whether they are being honest or lying again in things little and large, might even keep us up at night. Sure, we all lie to other people in our day to day lives. Sorry, I have a family emergency and I can’t attend this work thing or vice versa. There are white lies that doesn’t affect anyone and then there are lies that break people in half.

     If you think a relationship can live based on a lie, it will either die short or live long enough for the lie to break the relationship irrevocably. I tried to frame the sentence to mirror the dialogue between the ‘Dark Knight’ and the ‘White Knight’. At one point or the other, we are all put in a situation where we think that we know what’s best for the other person to know. As grown-ups, we all have the ‘right to know’. Would you rather a close one in your life hide something from you to shield you from possible pain than tell you the truth and be done with it?

     If you trust the person enough, your answer might be, ‘I wouldn’t mind them hiding things from me’ until there comes a time, when you feel violated and betrayed that your answer becomes, ‘you had no right hiding it from me’. And this time, it will make you question everything they did for you in a new light. Trust me, this new light will be darker and unforgiving. Not all truths deserve to be told immediately. ‘Your parents didn’t want you’ rings very differently to a kid than a grown-up.

     An adult on the other hand, deserves the truth as it is and it is their right to decide what they make of it. When we hide the truth from them and influence their decision, isn’t that somewhat the same as mind control? Would you rather your decisions not be your own but careful engineering by some other person in your life? Would you really give up your freewill to make your own choices?

     Honesty is not always an easy choice. A lie is easy to come by and easy to make believe. Truth, on the other hand, will always face some difficulties when expressed but give it time and it’ll blossom into something wonderful. Remember the times when earth was flat, black people were slaves, transgenders were cursed and homosexuals went to hell? We all know the battles that had to be fought and now look at our world. It’s perfectly round, all people are treated equal and all love is accepted. Of course, there will always be exceptions. There is no law without exceptions.

     Being honest to the people you love is of utmost importance. To the people that share most of your life, a lie is a poison that will eat the relationship inside out.

PILLARS OF A RELATIONSHIP – PART-V

     Do you trust the person sitting next to you? Do you trust the person that came to your mind while thinking about this question? Do you trust yourself to make the right choices when the time comes? If your answer to all the above questions is ‘Yes’, you might very well be the luckiest person on this whole damn planet. What if, your answer to all these questions is ‘No’? Does that mean you are cursed? No. It only means that you haven’t met the right person in your life that trusts you so much that you would trust them with your life.

     What is trust? Is it important in our day to day life? Is it just an excuse for us to load our responsibilities to some other person? Trust, like most other things, is not something you achieve instantly or in a short time even. Trust is built over truth. Trust is a wall which is built brick by brick over the course of a relationship, each brick an incident where you have the chance to think for yourself and decide in your favor over the relationship or your partner.

     I don’t think trust is an excuse that we give our own self so we can transfer some of our responsibilities to another person. I like to think that trust is something far more important in a relationship without which it can never be complete. I believe trust defines our ability to be human, to have faith in our fellow beings to do the right thing. It is a special allowance that we bestow upon another human being to decide for us, a right that we do not give everyone easily. It is a gift of promise that binds two different lives into a single knot sharing everything.

     There are different levels of trust depending upon the relationship we share with different people; parents, friends, family and colleagues. This also defines how much we share with anyone at any given point of time. The closer we grow with friends, the more we entrust them with; the farther we fall away from family, the lesser we share with them. Trust could be defined as the backbone of any relationship. I mean, would you share your bed with someone you do not trust? Would you share a bowl of soup from a person you do not trust?

     There is no one in this world who doesn’t trust anyone, neither is there a person who is not trusted by anyone. Our nature wants us to be trusted and in turn we trust in people who prove themselves. As I said before, we all make mistakes all the time. Sometimes we break the trust we built. It may not be intentional but us thinking it will be better that way. Broken trust is hard to build back just like broken glass. You can rework it but it’ll never be the same and it will require more than what it took the first time to build it back.

     When the other person trusts you completely and they simply forgive you for your trespasses, this is the person you need to be more careful with. The chances they give you will not be indefinite and when they stop giving you another chance, there is a very good possibility that you are not getting another. If you really value the relationship over your selfish desire to act on your impulses again, you should take a step back and evaluate your life choices. A relationship where a partner trusts you completely is not something that you can easily come by.

     Trust is a valuable gift that someone gives you when they think you are a part of them. Breaking that trust is like killing the part they shared with you in the first place. In a relationship such as marriage, that part is half of them and breaking their trust is synonymous to delivering them a killing blow yourself. Close your eyes and imagine the person you trust the most. Now imagine them reaching inside your mouth, clamping down on your stomach and pulling you inside out. Trust which was built over years, feels like this, when broken.

     Anything can be fixed when the right resources and the right amount of effort is put in it. Sure, it may not be the same but it can be recovered to the best level possible. A known devil is always better than the unknown and this holds true for relationships too.

PILLARS OF A RELATIONSHIP – PART-IV

     As evolved life forms, we show respect to fellow humans in varying degrees, like our lesser evolved fauna. When we like someone, we show a lot of respect to them. In case of friends however, I think it’s the inverse. The more you love your friends, the more you abuse them; verbally at least. It’s a different kind of respect that only your best friends can show you. No matter how much they slash you verbally, they would never give you up to others.

     When it comes to professional relationships, we have a mandatory requirement to be respectful to our colleagues, no matter how much we hate them or love them. Most often than not, we only have a grudging respect for our boss which his station requires. Rarely do we get a boss, who not only is friendly but also is not a jerk. All of our views vary in this aspect that no single person’s experience can be used to define a common cause.

     Why do we respect other people around us? Is it because we are inherently nice? Or is it because we want to be a good person? There are several reasons why we are respectful of others. Sometimes there is no reason, we just like them. Sometimes there is no other option, either they are our elders or they manage us. Sometimes we admire them for something that we love or something that we cannot be. Most times there is a valid reason why we respect others. When we respect others out of no reason, now that’s true respect. It’s not an inherent habit to our species to respect others for nothing. That’s what makes it special.

     Any relationship requires this respect for it to run long. Because the more you respect the other person, the stronger your relationship gets. Without respect, the relationship withers over time. Deep down, we all crave attention and appreciation. Respect is one such necessity that is expected by everyone no matter what.

     When I say respect, its not just being respectful in words but actions as well. When in a relationship, you must always put the relationship first. If your needs become selfish and you decide on things without consulting your partner, doesn’t that mean you don’t respect the relationship or your partner? I mean, there are things you can be selfish about and still enjoy a great relationship. Things like having the last slice of pizza or eating the last scoop of ice cream from the fridge and leaving an empty container for your significant other to find can be fun. Those are fun parts of being in a relationship.

     And then there are the big things in life. Things that are make or break for every relationship. If you decide to make an individual decision on such things, that can put a huge crack on the relationship. To err is human and there is a possibility for some slip-ups and these do not matter as long as they are things that do not define the relationship and not done intentionally. Before deciding on the major things by yourself, take a step back and think for yourself, what would my partner do when put in a situation like this? Would I want him to take a selfish decision without consenting me? Now do not take the high ground and think high & mighty. Be brutally honest, be yourself and think what you would do.

     When we ‘put ourselves in others shoes’, we tend to think that we would act rational and logical but when put in a true situation, rarely do we act rational or logical. Deep down, we all have that little crazy us, that’ll often raise its head over the reasonable us. Keep that in mind whenever you decide for yourself on the big things that will affect your relationship.

     Respect the other person, their feelings and emotions, their wants and dislikes. When you truly respect the other person, you should feel very uncomfortable deciding on things without taking them through with your partner. If you do feel comfortable doing that, maybe the relationship isn’t that important to you. Maybe your partner isn’t that important to you.