Have you ever had something you really wanted to do, but life kept getting in the way? That is the story of this post. The idea came to me at work a few days ago. The more I let it bounce around in my head, the more I realized how important it was to living an amazing life. I could not wait to sit down behind the keyboard and put my thoughts together. Then, life happened. There was a DJ gig for elementary school children. That was two straight hours of screaming. There was checking in on someone’s cat in a snowstorm. FYI, I am not a fan of cats or snowstorms. It seemed like every time I wanted to sit down and write, something came up.
Today, I determined that after my 9 hour shift, I was going to stop at a coffee shop on the way home and get these words out today. Only to discover that the Wi-Fi at the coffee shop was not working with my computer. Ironically, this plays into the very subject that we are going to discuss today. As the title says, one word to make all of the other words better.
It began with a text conversation I was having with this lovely lady right here. Margie and I have a really great relationship, but just like everyone else’s, it needs looking after and requires a lot of work and effort on both of our behalf. This particular morning, I was mentioning that we could stand to focus more on a certain area that was getting slightly neglected. Margie agreed, and we began to come up with solutions to do just that. I began to think of what are the aspects of a relationship. You have friendship. You must be able to be your partner’s best friend and all that goes with that. There is romance. You must find ways in which to capture their heart and make them feel like they are floating. Lastly, there is sensuality. That is what separates a romantic relationship from a platonic one.
The crazy part of having a successful relationship is that one of these areas always seems to need a little attention. If you have been supporting your partner, trying to places for dinner and exploring new museums together, the friendship side feels pretty strong. Then your partner asks if you still love them? Your first thought may be, “What the —–?” Before you realize that all of those things, while enjoyable, were quite platonic. So, you become diligent with expressing your loving feelings, maybe even brought home some flowers and spent hours walking in the park holding hands. You are starting to feel confident when you partner asks, “Are you still attracted to me?” You realize that although you have been loving, you need to be more sensual. You plan a weekend a weekend getaway, a nice bottle of wine and some alone time in bed with the two of you. After a pleasurably exhausting weekend, you partner asks if the two of you should spend more time working on your connection, by say exploring new places to eat or museums together.
It occurred to me how much an ideal relationship is a balancing act. Yes, balance is the word that makes every word better. When you pay attention to one aspect of your relationship, another gets less attention. When you start to pay more attention to the one that is being neglected, then a third pops up, and so it continues. We need to discover what are the important areas of our relationship and work on providing balance to them. Often, when one person in a relationship feels unhappy or even unsatisfied, it is not that anything is wrong, it may often just be unbalanced.
You could literally go through the dictionary and pick out a word and discover the important balance needed in a relationship. Let us take communication. To me, that is one of, if not the, most important aspects of a relationship. There must be many balances in communication. You must communicate your love in both verbal and not verbal ways. You must balance what kind of communication you are giving your partner. Is it loving? Is it supportive? Is it encouraging? I think we could all agree a little of all of those would make a great relationship.
While reading this, and even while I was thinking of it, the fact that there is a lot of work involved here did not escape me. Do you know what that means? There is also a lot of opportunity to make your relationship better! Even if it is great right now, there are ways in which you could use a little more balance. In what areas could your relationship use a little more balance? Can you imagine how much more loving and strong your relationship would be if you worked on creating that balance?
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 