The Temporary Relationship
As anyone who has ever been in love knows, when the love fades it rarely comes back. Significant others often move on in their lives with or without you, and our efforts to convince them to regain the love that once was grown betwixt are fraught with misgivings. The trouble often becomes that we aim to hang on to the person, or the love grown between, longer than the time that was allotted. Everything within this life is ultimately temporary, and we must remain aware that we are generally not able to determine the dimensions, shape, and size of our relationships whether they be romantic, personal, or familial. It is perhaps this knowledge that in turn can make our relationships so special. The knowledge that they inevitably will end, and likely will end more suddenly than we would choose, can play a key role in maintaining our own peace and happiness within the relationship, and ultimately help us to understand ourselves better. We can become more present within our relationships, and grow to foster a healthier dynamic with our partners.
Once we become accustomed to this characteristic of relationships, and accept the temporary nature of the experiences that we have within them, we can become more keenly aware to reforming our minds in the way that we approach the inevitable hardship of termination. If we understand that termination is inevitable, we can begin to place higher value on the experiences that lie within each relationship, and perhaps enjoy them more thoroughly than if we gave them the false pretense of lasting eternally. By giving credence to each moment shared within our relationships, we can begin to live more within the moments of each connection rather than between them. By being fully present within each moment, we perhaps begin to see that at the termination of any relationship, we should be responding with gratitude and appreciation rather than sorrow and regret.
In order to foster these feelings of appreciation and gratitude within our associations, we must consciously remain engaged with those that we want to have impactful and long lasting relationships with. By approaching each interaction within our relationships with genunine enthusiasm and interest, we not only become more engaged, but subsequently provide more value to the experience for all involved. However, we may ultimately lead with presence, engagement, and optimism only to be met with the opposite. This is perhaps the most challenging part of this whole process, knowing that we can be our best selves, modeling the type of experience that we want to partake within, and eventually be met with contradiction. It is from these difficult moments that we can grow our understanding of what our desires within partnership truly are, and learn to seek them in subsequent relationships.
