Love - Relationships, More Than Just An Opinion

It's all so confusing, especially in the day in which we live. Everyone seems to have an opinion, an angle, and their own definition as to what constitutes genuine relationships, especially those related to love. We all, at some time or another, have had or still have at least one relationship. Whether good or bad is questionable and is for every one of us to determine. Now this raises the question, how can one qualify a good/bad relationship? I do believe, though, that most of us are more apt to recognize a bad relationship than to unequivocally pinpoint a good one. As we all know, some things are blatantly obvious, and then again, some things are not.

Well, this is where objective thinking and facing reality come into play, and by that I mean the ability to be able to differentiate between principles and function. Therefore, the remainder of this article is to get things in perspective as they relate. Some of us have lived long enough to have learned that even through trial and error, some things in life simply do not work. For the most part, we try the same things in different ways just to end up with the same unfortunate results and relationships are no exception to that rule. It has been said that "there are thousands of ways to do a thing and only one is right." So I hope you can see where we are going with this.

It is estimated that there are approximately seven billion people on our planet currently and if asked to discuss any given subject, we all know that there would be myriads of opinions. Yes, every one of us might pat ourselves on the back and walk away quite contented entertaining the idea that we are right in our own way. But amidst all this consternation and self promotion, where is objective reality? In every aspect of life there should and must be boundaries, norms, standards, some sort of measurement or gauge. In other words, a system. Something that will let us know unequivocally that we are in or out of bonds.

Well, as we should see from this, our opinion is definitely not an issue. Certainly we are all entitled to our opinions with regards to many things in life, which have very little, if anything at all, to do with principles. Such as individual tastes and other things commensurate with one's personality. And even so, when we adopt a particular way of life, that does not mean it is correct. It only means that our freedom in not negated. We all have the right to choose whatever way of life, whatever course of action, whatever relationship we desire, with the accompanying ramifications of course! Relationships begins in as many different ways as we can think of, and they usually progresses from stage to stage to stage until they are more or less established. And just like everything else, things are always best at their beginnings, or at least they appear to be. And one of the reason for this is we tend to put more emphasis on our emotions rather than thought, "objective thinking".

We are magnetically drawn to the ostentatious, to the point of neglecting the inner essence of the object of our so-called love, which at this stage is about ninety nine percent infatuation. It's no wonder in our lack of objectivity we cannot help but inadvertently misconstrue these emotions and infatuations for genuine love, thereby initiating relationships on these hazy and nebulous concepts, which accounts for all the inevitable confusions and illusions. Most of us seem to have a tremendous propensity for our self-importance. In other words, selfishness abounds in every realm. In today's trend very few of us are sensitive enough to adequately be occupied with anyone else apart from ourselves. Relationships nowadays are mostly based on convenience. Some are conned into it with the attendant selfish motives and others, although well-meaning, lack the proper information and mechanics to sustain and perpetuate long-lasting and meaningful relationships.

By proper information and mechanics, we are referring to principles, boundaries, measurements and the like. These include respect, in general, for privacy, property, consideration, thoughtfulness, sensitivity, loyalty, willingness to forgive... In short, integrity, which all should be done with objective thinking and facing reality. For what it is eliminating, as much as possible, is the emotions that have been the criteria and basis for engaging in relationships.

Surely, emotion does have a wonderful part to play in all relationships, but it is incumbent upon us to keep checks and balances on them. Remember, emotions are not the initiator of love and relationships but should be a responder to what is true and genuine to the same. More often than not however, misguided emotions are a determining factor for the all too unfortunate demise of virtually all types of relationships, from start to finish. And please keep in mind that everything is not the same. And also, principles are more important than people. In essence, without principles, there would be no people, much less true and genuine relationships that can last forever.

Worrell Bertrand: Publisher: (C) 2011

Source: Ezine