Spirit of the River

Think about one of your closest relationships - with your best friend, your wife, your partner, your mother, any relationship that means a lot to you, even (no, especially if) it sometimes is problematic. When someone would ask you how much responsibility each person has to make the relationship work, what would you say? That it is a 50/50 share of responsibility, or maybe a 60/40 because you should always be willing to give a little more than the other person? While the explanations for both answers are understandable, it would be better for everyone if we always took on 100% of the responsibility - without expecting anything in return. I think if we all just stopped expecting too much from each other and took on more responsibility for our OWN behaviour, then many friendships and relationships would work a lot better. The expectation factor is one of the things that leads to many disappointments, bitterness, and even resentment. And if you stop expecting things for every one...

When I look back at some of the articles I have written for this blog, I am wondering why I do have all of those ideas, why I can give people good advice on how to become better people, how to treat themselves, how to be themselves, etc, but then not follow my own advice. And I am sure that I am not the only person who - in theory - knows a lot about life, about how to be happy, about how to act so that you can achieve your dreams in life. But why is it so much easier to help other people? Or to turn the question around: Why is it so much harder to listen to my own advice, i.e. not chase other people and respect yourself enough to not let others treat you like an idiot? Or make time for the things that are truly important to you? Does it ever happen to you that you have good answers to other people's problems, and can even help them very well, but then you look at your own life and wonder why you can't do the same for yourself?