The Secret of Healthy Relationships-2
I’ve written a fair about it in the past. On Love (here). The most common complaints I still get are that I don’t feel the same way or he’s not the same person anymore or she doesn’t respect my family or he’s really changed or he no longer understands me and so forth. I’m not surprised because there’s a common misconception about love. When two people are in love, one or both of them tend to believe that love will be enough to keep them going. The truth is love alone is rarely enough because just wanting the other person is not love.
Loving someone and living with that person are two totally different things. Just being able to love is not enough for harmonious living. Successful relationships are not built on some utopian definition of love but on simple practical aspects of living. Often when things turn sour, we compare our relationship with the ideal definition we once held. This view makes us feel that nothing good ever existed in this relationship, that the whole thing was a mistake from the start. Hold your horses at that moment. It’s your mind playing tricks. Your emotional state has taken over the reality.
Life is no fairy tale, but it’s not a horror story either. It’s neither a comedy or tragedy, it just is. When life goes jelly, we often only look at the negatives, the depressing times, the trying times of the past. Mind loses its ability to see the complete picture, to remember the beautiful moments too. When you lose a tooth, for instance, for days thereafter, the tongue keeps going to the empty space. It’s not interested in the other 31 teeth still intact. Instead, it keeps rolling on the cavity of the lost tooth. Similarly, mind is attracted to what we are missing, and in doing so, it overlooks, even rejects, what we already have.
A newly wed couple asked their master, “What shall we do to make our love last?”
“Love other things together,” he replied.
This is the secret of successful relationships: love other things together and don’t lose sight of the good you have. When you are able to love not just the person you love but what they love, your relationship reaches a whole new level. If what matters to them starts to mean something to you, living together becomes a great deal easier.
Loving and living together at the same time is only possible when two people care about what the other person loves.
Om Namah Shivay
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