Relationships
Preface: I wrote this pretty drunk, so please take the following with a grain of salt
I’ve learned a lot about relationships lately. Chief among the things I’ve learned, is what I don’t like about myself. It’s a strange paradigm, but one worth examining: Why is it so much easier to see the flaws of others in our relationships with them, than it is to see the flaws in ourselves?
Usually, the ugliest part of ourselves is what we convey to try to achieve social acceptance. That is, the part of us that usually is the worst, is the part that we’ve developed as a coping mechanism to adapt to the environment we want to be in.
There are a myriad of ways people use to adapt to social pressures. I’ve seen the arrogant, flamboyant, narcissistic, as well as the introverted and withdrawn attitudes people use as a method for dealing with social interactions with other people.
In other words. I’ve seen a lot of ways people deal with relationships.
What’s wrong with any of the attitudes folks use to deal with social interaction?
I can’t help but think that a difference in personal character due to the interpreted pressures of relationships (boss/employee, husband/wife, friend/friend, competitor/competitor, etc…) somehow steals the opportunity for your opposite (the other person(s) in the relationship) to gauge who you are.
There may be significant reason for you to wish your opposite in relationship to not know who you really are. Usually though, those reasons are nefarious at best. If you’re looking to hide who you really are, than you have something to hide.
Most of us, do not have a significant reason to hide our true intentions from normal conversation, with any of our typical relationships. We do the things we do, because somewhere down the road of life, we learned how to do these things, as a way to protect that part of ourselves that’s vulnerable to outside interaction. One time as a kid, you told someone something that left you open to ridicule, and you were laughed at for it. Or, perhaps you trusted someone with something important to you, and you were betrayed.
None of the previously mentioned situations really matter. That’s because it’s not important how you got your knack for lying (yes, it’s lying). What is important, is that you realize that by adjusting your attitude and / or demeanor for specific situations, is paramount to a lie. That lie sells you out, and steals a bit of your life away.
While that may seem like a bold statement, I’d challenge you (the reader) to think about that a minute. Think for a second, that you are 16 again. You are in high-school, and you’ve barely a real care in the world. If any of the same people that you know now, came to you while you still possessed this cavalier attitude about life, would you still act the same?
Most likely, the answer is that you wouldn’t be nearly as quick to hide key facts about yourself as you are now. Some of you might think that this is a good thing, and that by acting appropriately to your environment, you’ve seeded yourself as more professional, and more apt to succeed in your field of occupation, or more likely to make a significant other happy, or more likely to keep a friend friendly.
Think again…
Fundamentally, we are all human beings. If you speak from your heart on any topic of conversation, with respect to those you are speaking with, how can you go wrong? In the off-chance that your are lambasted by your opposite in your relationship for speaking your mind (with all due regard to your opposite), then perhaps the relationship with your opposite is worth examining.
A fundamental paradigm of this dichotomy, is self-esteem. You have to believe enough in yourself, to allow others to believe in you too. This can be a tricky subject, as many folks simply do not think highly enough of themselves, to speak honestly of what they think, to allow others to hear what is truly on their mind.
