Tag: appreciation

  • Where to From Here?

    Where to From Here?

    Where do you go when you’re done with the world, but the world is not done with you? The blessing of having a lot of life in your years is that you have a lot of life in your years. While others are playing it safe, treating life like the marathon that it is, I’m the one rushing from sprint to sprint knowing that the marathon could end quite unceremoniously at any moment.

    The highs are frequent and exhausting, but so fulfilling. The lows creep up when you pause for a breath between the sprints and you notice that by comparison, you appear a tad crazy to those that are happy to be carried by the trickling current of complacency. Complacency always feels like a threat to me. It threatens to subdue my spirit in favour of a meaningless composure.

    Composure is something that is obviously subjective, but also often misunderstood. For me, composure is a sense of quiet confidence and fulfilment about what I’m aware of, what I’m capable of, and what I want from a given moment. When those three things feel balanced, it becomes very difficult for anyone to disrupt that composed state. Of course this ruffles many feathers at times because sometimes people want you to look like you’re in disarray at the news of their challenges or drama.

    The more grounded I find myself in a moment that demands a reaction, the more rational I find my response to be. For this reason I defend my personal space aggressively from such external interference that threatens to contaminate it with paranoia and entitlement. I found all of this coming to the fore more than ever in recent months, which resulted in me quitting my job in a corporate to finally pursue opportunities that I am passionate about.

    What was important in my decision to quit was whether I was doing it because I felt compelled to, or because I wanted to. I’ve had previous run-ins with big egos in corporate settings that forced me to choose my sanity over my income, and each time my sanity was not for sale. Sanity in this case was not only my grasp on reality, but also my sense of dignity and authenticity. When either was threatened, it brought out a side of me that many found abrasive. The reason they found it abrasive was because they did not share my values and ideals. Before I realised this, I simply assumed them to be dishonest or insincere. Now that I’ve realised this, I simply judge them for not demanding more from themselves, but I refrain from correcting them.

    This shift in engagement principles has been a significant change for me to embrace. When I embraced it, I realised that I was starting to compromise on the core of being me, and instead, I was starting to play the political games that make or break careers in the corporate world. That’s when the decision to exit became easy for me. It was no longer in response to a threat from colleagues, or from fear of being maligned or blamed for things out of my control. Instead, it was a solemn realisation that all the fight and passion that I have in me could be better spent in endeavours that had a chance of influencing the change that I wish to see in the world around me.

    Emerging from a cocoon-like state in a protected environment and facing the world on your own terms is a daunting experience, especially when your responsibilities extend well beyond just your personal well being. I’ve seen so many feel bitterly entrapped in their jobs because of the responsibility that they have towards their families. I’ve also seen the same people grow distant and abrasive and entitled towards their families because of the self-imposed view that they are tied down to a job that they hate simply because they have responsibilities. That made their supposed sacrifices all the more meritorious, and any action or inaction that did not celebrate that sacrifice was seen as ingratitude. I couldn’t allow myself to get into that state.

    Our perception of our options, I’ve discovered, are often informed by our ego. We fill ourselves with self-importance, and then use that self-importance to convince ourselves why we should not take risks. The risk aversion is not always related to the responsibilities that we have. Instead, it is related to our fear of failing at something other than what we are familiar with. When we hate what we’re familiar with, we find reason to defend our decision not to do something decisive about it, and often that defense is based on apportioning blame to others, or to circumstances because once again, it absolves us of the responsibility to act.

    Where to from here? I don’t know. What I do know is that if I fail to recognise the value that I contributed to the corporate world over the last twenty odd years of my life, and if I fail to appreciate the re-usable skills that I acquired in that time, I’ll be looking for another hand-out job offer to keep me sane and relevant. My focus now is therefore on everything that I have proven myself to be capable of, and to find ways to apply that in a meaningful way to pursuits that are anything but conventional, while seeking to fulfil the conventional needs of those that don’t realise they have those needs yet.

    It is a cryptic space, but not any more cryptic than life has been so far. The only reason we don’t recognise how cryptic life has been is because everyone was facing the same growing pains as we were. So there was collective comfort in knowing that we were not incompetent by ourselves. The cynic in me has returned, it seems. But this is a natural disposition that offers me insights into opportunities that would otherwise be hidden by the monotony of being normal. A return to myself is called for, and leaving a toxic environment on my terms was the first decisive step I needed to take to ensure that my life amounts to more than just a regular pay cheque from an unfulfilling job. There is relevance and significance to be earned outside of corporate. And that is where I’m heading with everything that I am.

    Perhaps the world that I was done with, was in fact not the world at all.

  • I Am Enough

    I noticed an affirmation posted in someone’s workspace recently. I’m not one for affirmations, so I usually don’t pay much attention to such things. Psychosomaticism (if there is such a word) works if you’re not aware of where you’re at. Affirmations serve as reminders for what we should not be doing, but seldom, if ever does it serve to confirm why we should not be doing it. Some would tell themselves that they’re at peace with the universe and the universe is full of love, and then they turn on the news and realise that it’s not true. But holding on to the affirmation is the only handhold of sanity that they have, so they repeat the mantra just like Joseph Goebbels said they should. You know, if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes accepted as truth.

    The reason this affirmation caught my attention is because it immediately prompted me with a somewhat disturbing question. The affirmation simply read, “I am enough”. The question it prompted was, “At which point did you convince yourself that you were not enough?”

    It’s this dissonance (at the risk of sounding aloof) that confuses me about human nature. We constantly look for reasons to pacify ourselves about our current state, but rarely seek  to actively change that state. It’s as if we have given up our agency (another aloof term) in favour of being nurtured. Not nurtured in a healthy and wholesome way, but rather in the way that a victim needs to be consoled even though they may have been party to the distress that they experienced.

    Each moment that we spend convincing ourselves that we’re out of control, we establish reasons to compensate for that through distractions. Yes, we cannot change what we’re presented with in life. But only to a point. This reminds me of one of my favourite analogies. If you poke a stick into a beehive, don’t complain when you get stung. Similarly, if we choose to be ignorant of these hives of consequences around us, and instead wander naively from one life experience to the next, we should not complain when what we receive is not what we wanted.

    Life becomes complicated and exceedingly overbearing when we feel subjected to the circumstances around us, while refusing to accept our accountability to act in spite of it. Stated more simply, there is no joy to be had from waiting for another to rescue us, while we willingly step into that pit of quicksand.

    Again, the failing of this accelerated pace of development that we’re experiencing as a result of the so-called fourth industrial revolution is that we are spoiled for choice in how to distract ourselves from what is important, or more importantly, from what makes us feel uncomfortable. Change, or accountability (often both) is what causes us to feel uneasy as we lazily observe the world through social media. Social media is not the problem in this case. What we believe we need from it is the important part.

    Problem is, most don’t know what they need, they only know what makes them feel good. It’s like we’re all suddenly Pavlov’s dog waiting for that next ‘like’ or that unread badge count to go up because we’ve replaced human connection with electronic communication. Nothing replaces the energy felt between two humans connecting. It doesn’t have to be a physical connection either. It’s simply a connection of conviction and aspiration. Two people looking in the same direction and believing, with conviction, in the myriad of possibilities waiting to be realised.

    However, one of the most daunting realities these days appears to be trust. The one thing that we once gave without thinking now becomes something we withhold until proven worthy. Connecting over a digital device gives us control over the level of trust we allow, or accept. Those that venture into this domain blindly give trust blindly and are subsequently destroyed when what they said in private becomes the next viral sensation on the internet.

    It all comes back to one simple, but very elusive point. Know yourself. Be mindful. Embrace accountability. They’re all one and the same, even though academics and motivational speakers will have you believe they’re not. When you know who you are, are willing to question why you’re not where you wish you were, and are willing to take accountability for where you’re at, you will know that you are enough because that is how far you chose to push yourself. Anything beyond that point is directly related to the effort you put in towards achieving it, and almost equally, the effort you put into letting go of that which no longer serves your aspirations as a human being.

    Everything else is a distraction. The kind of distractions that leave us needing to convince ourselves that we’re enough, because at some point we didn’t realise that we convinced ourselves that we were lacking for no good reason at all.

  • The Other Side Of Arrogance

    The Other Side Of Arrogance

    This is the story of assumptions. Assumptions that we make about prickly characters and their tender counterparts. Assumptions we make about the motivation of people to act the way that they do, without realising that those assumptions are projections of how we believe we would act if faced with their circumstances, and then we judge them for it while cursing those that judge us under similar circumstances. 

    Facebook is a social experiment for many, including its investors. More importantly, I experiment with it by occasionally mixing in populist sentiment with principled viewpoints that I know will make many people awkward or even infuriated. And every single time, it proves true that people only polarise towards those that make them feel good about themselves, and rarely towards those that force them to think critically. Everyone wants to have their struggle recognised, but no one wants to emerge independently from their struggles because most often, their struggles grow to define their significance. The arrogance that is reflected in this approach is not one that most would relate to because we assume by default that arrogance is only an attribute of those that live selfishly, abruptly, or obnoxiously. Most are incapable of separating arrogance from passion or conviction, much to their own detriment. 
    Those that appear meek or subdued are often considered humble or downtrodden because of their apparently pitiful state, but there is an arrogance that runs deep in them as well. That arrogance is based on the belief that their state is so grave or overwhelming, that they should be celebrated for persevering, and they deserve all the compassion and assistance that their circumstance calls for. However, we’re too often so focused on the circumstance that we fail to consider their contribution towards enabling or causing their circumstance to arise. 

    The arrogance sets in when we assume that we simply cannot be responsible for our woes. The unpleasant experiences of life must have been imposed on our soft and kind nature by other arrogant or selfish ones, and therefore we are the victims of their oppression long after they departed from our lives and left us with enough opportunity to choose differently. That arrogance is the belief that life owes us more, as if life is independent of our choices and our efforts to improve our state. 

    The other side of arrogance emerges when we feel entitled to compassion, or we demand indulgence because we need an age old account to be settled before we let go of what’s holding us back. The other side of arrogance shows its ugly face when we define ourselves as damaged because we think someone else damaged us, while not realising that we subscribe willingly to being damaged and then abdicate responsibility for such a heinous choice. 

    Arrogance is not the absence of humility. Instead, arrogance is the assumption of humility, and similarly, it is the assumption of feeling entitled to a kindness that is not yours to demand or expect. The moment you impose your expectations on others, regardless of how justified it may be, before you are willing to let go of a sour experience, you become arrogant, because what should be an act of conviction now becomes a transaction of emotional blackmail. 

    Sadly, too many don’t realise this, and continue to live in self-constructed prisons while blaming the world for being cruel. 

  • Slip Sliding Away

    There are far too many mornings when I wake up and find myself searching for a specific inspiration before looking forward to the events or non-events of the day. My inclination to write is dwindling at a pace that is concerning, because it was part of a bigger picture ideal that I held on to for a very long time. ‘Held on to‘ is probably not an accurate way to describe it. It was part of a broader purpose that I willingly subscribed to. Still do, but just not with as much gusto as I did before.

    The time when I expressed without restraint has been replaced by a time when I am measured in favour of the absence of drama. That’s not how I envisaged living my life. I still push the boundaries in my own ways, but not nearly as aggressively as I used to. Perhaps this is why I write less often, and my book has stagnated to the point of gathering digital cobwebs. Resurrecting it has its benefits in that I will once again read an old manuscript with fresh eyes. The downside is that I will feel the burden of revising something that has been endlessly revised already. It’s like solving the same problem over and over and over again. That detracts from the sincerity of the text, the rawness of the expression of emotion, and the clarity of thought that inspired the writing in the first place.

    Not long after waking up with such a vapid mindset I find myself anxious and restless, with the need to achieve something meaningful with the limited time and resources I have at my disposal once again prompting me to drag my butt out of bed and into a course of action that will satisfy the yearning within me to make a difference. To contribute towards a world that I desired for myself, but was unable to achieve it, so I apply myself in the pursuit of creating it for my children, and for the generations to come. The sowing of my seed in the hope that the shade of its tree will shelter and offer a comforting repose to ones that I will never know or meet, and neither will they ever know or meet me.

    I think it is in this anonymous benefit that we feel both part of a greater social cohesiveness, and simultaneously take for granted the social fabric that offers us the comfort and security to be who we are. In other words, if we don’t realise what it is that we get from society, we won’t see reason to pay it forward for others to enjoy the same benefit. In so doing, we end up in the state that too many find themselves in, including me, where we persevere in the establishment of those structures was once available to others, but were eroded to the point of disuse leaving us to establish it once again in the hope that it will one day be available to the ones that come after us.

    The cryptic nature of my thoughts appear to be returning, which in essence is a good thing. It implies that I am once again looking questioningly at the world around me rather than enjoying or despising it at face value. Moments between such phases of inquiry in my life feel lifeless and vacuous. Life becomes an empty shell that demands fulfilment in the form of instant gratification and reckless indulgence when such purpose is lacking. That too often seems to explain a lot of what I see around me. Missed opportunities and broken commitments, not promises. Commitments transcend the fickleness of overt promises. Commitments set the expectation of loyalty, trust, honesty, sincerity, and so much more. A promise is merely a contract made either with conviction, or with a sense of responsibility, but not always made with a sense of true commitment to the agreed outcome.

    Life slips away when we falter on the path that leads to fulfilment of purpose. That faltering arrives in the form of a distracted emphasis on agreements, and obligations, rather than mutual commitment to the spirit of the outcome of such shared aspirations. That slope is slippery. It starts with a need to take care of numero uno when we have good reason to believe that if we don’t, no one will take care of what we need, and quickly descends into a selfish embrace of life when we discover the joy of finally getting what we want before having to worry about what others need. It starts out as doing something for ourselves for a change and quickly becomes the norm when we realise how many others do exactly the same. This collective irresponsibility somehow justifies the abandonment of responsibility to those around us, and soon thereafter we become part of the burdening masses that burden our souls through their self-indulgent destruction of the lives of those that they once committed to protect and uplift.

    Some may interpret this as divorce, some as betrayals of trust, and others as a betrayal of a shared dream. Either way, the betrayal is what lingers, and the selfishness that ensues appears to be the most sane response to an insane world. Our slip into the fabric of that tainted world escapes us when we lose sight of our own purpose that we abandoned in favour of the response to a tainted crowd.

    Life slips away when we stop serving something greater than our selfish needs. Once we find ourselves sliding into that abyss that offers gratification without fulfilment, we grow increasingly closer to embracing the animal within, and abandoning the human without. Courage takes on a new form when we find ourselves clawing our way up that slope to break the slide that many others so willingly embrace. Courage is a rare attribute these days. Populism has killed it.

  • The Iceberg Effect (Take II)

    My somewhat poor attempt at describing the iceberg effect in my previous post compelled me to take a second stab at it. I think I over complicated it previously, so here’s a (hopefully) shorter but clearer explanation of what I think is an important concept to grasp.

    If we view the progression of our efforts towards what is perceived as a successful state, and we compare that progression to the metaphor of an iceberg, then we need to turn that berg on its head. All the memes and the common wisdom suggests that our problems, struggles, failures, and so much more lie beneath the water line, while that which is above the water line is simply the successful outcome that is visible to others. I have two problems with this approach.

    Firstly, it assumes that we experienced our problems and failures and everything else in private, and not in front of others. We know that this is totally untrue because it is in fact our spectacular failures in a public setting that discourages so many to avoid trying again. They’re the ones that are more focused on being defined by the validation they received from others rather than defining themselves according to how well they know themselves. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know ourselves well enough to be able to accurately define ourselves. Hence our inclination to take our cues from society. Perverse logic indeed.

    Secondly, the above approach also assumes that our struggles remain below the surface, while we celebrate our success in plain view of everyone else. Again, this mostly refers to those that still harbour a desire to be celebrated for their struggles so that the magnanimity of their success can been appreciated that much more.

    I think the truth is closer to the fact that the iceberg in its entirety is our journey towards success. The part that rises to the surface first is the steps that set us out on that journey. As we chip away at that surface, or what is visible, we remove chunks of uncertainty and doubt, and allow space for what’s next in that journey to rise to the surface. As we chisel away at these steps towards success, the success that rested at the base of that iceberg, and not the tip, slowly surfaces until eventually it is in full view. When we grow complacent, it melts away and is quickly replaced by more ice that once again suppresses the success, until it sinks to the bottom of the water line, and all we have on the surface is again the taunts of challenges and failures.

    Most people don’t notice us when we chip away at what is holding us back. They only notice us when we’re in either extreme. Failure, or success. Failure, because they don’t want to be like us, and success, because they want to be like us. Everything in between is largely a private experience that we dress up in different ways for the world to see, while a few, or at least one or two significant others are allowed close enough to witness or experience that journey with us.

    The moment we focus on dressing up our failures or challenges to make it less humiliating in the presence of others, we focus on their perceptions and validations, rather than the purpose that drive us to strive for that success in the first place. Keep a firm grasp on that purpose, and the ice will never be slippery enough to dethrone you.

  • Taken for Granted

    It’s not always a bad thing to be taken for granted. It really all depends on who is taking you for granted, doesn’t it? When we incline towards selflessness, being taken for granted is comforting. It means that those around us find us to be dependable for what it is that they need from us. If we’re not inclined towards selflessness, that same feeling of dependability turns into a feeling of being used. I guess that means being taken for granted is more dependent on who we are, rather than how others treat us, not so?

    What I need from a given relationship is what I use as a benchmark to determine how I am appreciated. The less I need, the more likely I am to contribute without any expectation of either gratitude or reciprocation. The moment I need something, and I don’t get it in the portion sizes that I want, I hold back and withdraw. That’s when I start feeling used. Problem is, that is based on the assumption that the other person knows exactly what it is that I need from them, and they also know why it’s important for me to get it from them specifically.

    Almost everything we get in life can be obtained from multiple sources. Feeling loved can be achieved through affection and acceptance of strangers, but the value of such love is significantly less than the value from significant others. Again, it points to the worth we place on others, rather than the worth they place on us. I think this is important. It is important because we usually fail to consider our investment or contribution towards the circumstances that lead to us being taken for granted.

    It is very easy to feel oppressed or persecuted when our needs are not considered. However, if we constantly strive to put up a front of independence and aloofness so that we don’t seem needy or desperate, then isn’t it reasonable for others to assume that we need that much less? Think about it. The amount of neediness I express is proportional to the amount of neediness that others witness. How we judge that need is a separate matter. Our judgement thereof is based on the biases we hold on to relative to the objective truth of the matter at hand. In other words, our prejudices and hurts determine whether or not we see something as positive, negative, or neutral.

    So back to the point at hand. The pervasiveness of political correctness in the world is a result of the majority needing to feel appreciated or respected for their struggles because they generally lack the courage to take accountability for their contribution towards the state in which they find themselves. Political correctness is a polite but insincere way of demonstrating appreciation while disagreeing with what is happening to begin with. We’re insincere like that. We don’t want to be taken for granted the way we take others for granted. Awkward truth.

    The point is, we’re only taken for granted in a bad way when we need more than we are willing to give. If our true purpose and conviction in life is to uplift and serve humanity for the greater good, we will contribute and invest in others regardless of reciprocation or reward. We will find comfort in knowing that someone else’s life is slightly easier, or their struggles are somewhat eased because of something we did, anonymously or not. Whether or not they reciprocate should not be the defining motivation for us to act, because in living among a social structure that enjoys such selfless contribution, we automatically gain from the harmony that results.

    We rarely consider what we take from society, or from the selfless contribution of others, but are quick to assume that we’re taken for granted the moment we have an expectation that is not fulfilled. Being taken for granted is a compliment. It’s tacit acknowledgement that we can be relied upon to produce something of value. Value that is so pervasive, that we grow accustomed to it being there, while only realising its worth when it is removed from our lives. Being taken for granted is only a reality when we expect something in return, but don’t get it. If we manage our expectations, we’ll find that feelings of abuse from being taken for granted will be fleeting, while our focus on contributing towards others in ways that fulfil our lives will increase.

    The logic is simple. If we truly love doing something, we’ll do it regardless of who notices or acknowledges. However, if we truly love getting attention for what we do, we’ll only do it as long as someone is noticing. Perhaps this is why in a society of attention whores, there is so little fulfilment in life.

  • Sensible Emotional Investment

    That’s an oxymoron of note, I guess. Emotions generally take us on a journey of reckless abandon, even if that abandon is just the unrealistic expectations that the emotional highs spawn in us. One of the downsides of living with conviction is that you easily become emotionally invested in almost any objective that you set out to achieve. Conviction dictates that you would only do something if you were proud to be associated with the outcome, or perhaps just the effort regardless of the outcome. Without conviction, the focus would be on what you can get out of a given opportunity without being invested in its pursuit or outcome. Although that is not entirely true.

    I think we have convictions, whether or not we realise it is a separate matter. Just because we’re not aware of what drives us does not mean that we’re not similarly driven. I see people struggling with mindfulness and I wonder why it is so difficult for them to achieve. At times it is elusive for me as well, but that’s usually when I’m distracted by entertainment rather than meaningful endeavours.

    However, most appear to seek entertainment (read ‘distractions’) actively while meaningful endeavours are only pursued out of necessity. It seems like such a lopsided way to live. Either way, those prioritisations that we subconsciously subscribe to determine our convictions. The more subconscious it is, the more likely we are to respond instinctively or habitually without fully understanding why. I’ve seen people getting themselves into all sorts of twisted knots when going through life this way because they most often find themselves weighed down without knowing why, or caring while knowing full well that that emotional investment is unappreciated or abused. Underlying all of this mindlessness is a deep sense of self-deprecation.

    Ok, did I lose you at mindlessness? Think about it. If you’re not mindful, then you must be mindless, at least within a specific context where you’re not fully present. When we’re mindless, we don’t suddenly stop functioning. We continue to function reasonably well. But being mindless, it must mean that we’re on auto-pilot at that time. Which begs the question, what programs our auto-pilot mode? I think it’s the constant internalisations of how we want to be perceived, relative to how we conduct ourselves to achieve such a perception.

    Ugh, that sounds unnecessarily complicated. Let’s try again. When we focus on how we appear in front of others, we obsess with how we need to behave to maintain our preferred appearances. In other words, we know what others admire or respect, and we play to those whims. In so doing, we condition ourselves to respond in line with those perceived expectations. The more accurate our assumptions about those expectations, the more effective our auto-pilot responses. The more effective our responses, the more likely we are to feel a sense of validation and acceptance, resulting in a further investment in that approach to life. Until we have a jarring moment that prompts us to wonder if we really subscribe to the value system that has turned us into whores for that attention or acceptance.

    In that moment, we’re forced to either accept or reject what we have grown to stand for. The idea of self-rejection is so troubling for so many, that most convince themselves that they would be worthless without such whorish behaviour. Challenge them on it and you’re likely to get a response along the lines of, “You don’t know what it’s like to be me.” Or similar drivel. Mindlessness is therefore a result of a lack of self-worth. A lack of self-worth then must be spawned by a lack of conscious purpose. That lack of conscious purpose is driven by a need for validation, which pretty much starts with an ingratitude for what you have and what you’re capable of while you’re focusing on how much others have and what they appear to be capable of. Hold on, did we just come full circle for mindfulness?

    Looking inwardly, not to achieve a moment of silence or pause, but to recognise what is good and what is beneficial in your life is the starting point of investing your emotions in the right place. When you do this, you develop the convictions needed to establish yourself as a contributor of meaningful outcomes to those around you, rather than riding the coat-tails of others while pretending to be supportive. As long as you’re riding someone else’s coat-tails, you’ll have a deficit of self-worth because you will always be dependent on their presence and acceptance of you for your sense of self-worth to flourish. In other words, the moment they push you away, you will have no grounding point with which to determine your ability to contribute something of value to others.

    Invest in your awareness of what your capabilities are, understand clearly what difference you want to make to this world, and then define a path of progress that will allow you to hone your skills and abilities to contribute meaningfully towards that difference you wish to make. Don’t worry about attracting the right person into your life, or worse still, going out in search of the right person or friends, because if you do what you love, and they do what they love, it stands to reason that you will find yourself associated with those that hold a similar conviction, and therefore live their lives with a similar passion as you do yours. And all this confirms the age old saying that you should not go searching for the one you love. Do what you love and your love will find you.

    P.S. If you don’t live your life in this way, you will live your life expending massive amounts of energy competing with others that are vying for the attention of those that live their lives in this way. Your emotions. Your choice. Do you have the courage to make that choice, or are you waiting for someone to come along and save you…from yourself?

  • That Half Full Glass

    Do relationships end because people change, or because they finally realise who they’re with? Or is it closer to going in with a belief that growth is possible, only to discover that their partner was uninterested in growth? Or maybe the possibility of growth spawned an immature competition between the two, and they grew apart instead of growing together?

    I’ve seen and lived through my fair share (and then some) of bad relationships. The haunting reality of every single one of them was the amount of self-denial if not self-destruction that was insisted upon by one or both parties. In my mind, I visualise relationships as a glass half full. No, not that glass, another glass. We’re all semi-filled glasses of water in a way. Any person that claims to be entirely fulfilled by their own endeavours and independent of the contribution of others to feel completely whole is a liar.

    Back to that glass. We hold on to many glasses in our lifetimes with each glass representing a major area of interest, or passion in our lives. When it comes to relationships, our relationship glass is half full as we invite others into that space. We only invite those that hold the promise of adding to that half full glass so that we can top it up, realistically only trying to approach the brim while knowing that getting it to overflow is rarely, if ever possible in this lifetime. This world was simply not created for such perfect fulfilment.

    Nonetheless, when we invite others in, we hold an innate expectation that they will contribute towards that glass which will serve as inspiration for us to contribute to theirs. Sometimes, we’re not aware of how full or how empty the glass of the other is. We assume, based on our own perceptions and life stage, that those that appear similarly inclined have glasses filled similar to our own. This assumption, based on superficial interactions, inform our decisions to invite them in or pull them closer, all the while looking to draw on those expectations we never realised we had. It all seems natural until it’s put to the test.

    The gaps that exist in the souls of others only become evident when they’re exposed to the prying eyes of one who appears less vapid. Often, this awareness is news to them as well because in our efforts to protect our vulnerabilities from the world, we’re easily convinced of our completeness in the face of adversity. Believing that we’re victorious over our adversities steels us against the harsh reality of our weakness or neediness. No one wants to appear weak, except where such appearances promise to solicit the affection of those we seek.

    It’s quite the charade. When we desire the embrace of another, we’ll easily allow our weakness to show if there is reason to believe that such weakness will be perceived as tenderness, rather than impotence. Similarly, we go out seeking such weakness if we wish to be perceived as strong and dependable. But almost always, unless we’re self-destructive by inclination, we look for one that counter balances who we are. Our strengths must complement their weaknesses, and their strengths our weaknesses. Otherwise we encourage competition in a space where we seek harmony, and so the cycle plays out in varying permutations, all the while reflecting nothing more than the glass that needs to be filled, just in different ways.

    When our expectations are failed, we respond in one of three ways. We cut our losses and focus on our investment in our own glass, protecting what little we’ve accumulated over time by extricating the drain on that precious life source that gives us reason to pursue a new day leaving the empty glass to find another source of affirmation from which to fill its voids.

    At other times we compensate for what is lacking by complementing our lives with the contributions from others that are not fully invested in our intimate relationships, but fill the gaps of the plutonic needs that remain unfulfilled by the ones closest to us. Some see this as infidelity, depending entirely on your cultural or religious subscriptions, while others see this as a balanced reality that can’t be avoided. Again, entirely dependent on how you view the innocence or deviousness of such an effort. What it does do for the ones closer to us is it eases the burden of expectation that we place on them because we effectively buy ourselves time while waiting for them to catch up. We see their weakness and trust their sincerity to improve their state, so we offer them support while we nurture ourselves through other means in the hope that such alternate nurturing will be temporary only. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it taints us to the point of needing such variety of nurturing as a permanent feature in our lives.

    The third response is the most destructive of them all. Pride, ego, commitment, or simply a rigidity informed by all of the above drives us to allow that drain to suck the life out of us as we wait patiently for the other to catch up. Their glass slowly filling up while ours drains, eventually resulting in them feeling emboldened in the face of our growing weakness. Their newfound confidence leading them to believe that they’re worth more than the spent soul they see before them, convinced that they were not the problem to begin with. In allowing ourselves to be exhausted in so many ways by contributing to a vacuum, we become the masters of our own demise. This is only ever possible if we feel responsible for the poor choices of others.

    As I mentioned in my thoughts about unconditional love, sacrificing yourself for the benefit of others in fact denies those that are worthy of your full contribution to begin with. Allowing your glass to empty because of some irrational commitment to an outcome that causes more destruction than it contributes towards a wholesome life is not martyrdom, it’s foolishness. Worse than this, it is reckless and selfish, because that moment of self-indulgence, when we reduce the purpose of our lives to propping up those around us at the expense of our own well being is nothing more than a statement of ingratitude for all that we are, and all that we’re capable of being.

    My glass will never be full, but I will never willingly allow it to be exhausted by others either. It’s the least I owe to myself, and to those that have a legitimate reliance on me to contribute towards their glasses as well. Anything less is unacceptable.