Relationships - Part 4b

In part 4a, I gave a simple example of the reality check - comparing a partner’s words with their actions. As painful and difficult as that might be, life would still be far simpler if that was all we had to do.

Life tends to play more devious games with us however and, whether dealing with a relationship or with a solo life, the personal reality check is essential. I will briefly cover that now, hopefully you will get the message by reading the examples below.

We build up attitudes, beliefs and, dare I say it, scarring labelled as experience. We can plod on through life holding these dear to our hearts and minds.
To give ourselves the best shot at happiness or (where we rate it as a higher priority) fulfilment, we need to ask ourselves some questions.

They consist of a set of more detailed and specific variations of “Does who I am and what I believe serve me best to achieve what I want from life?”
If the answer is no, you are probably living a set of mistaken beliefs.

(For thoroughness, I’d better state that personal integrity can demand that we live a life lacking in elements that would otherwise make us happy. Being happy is not the only criteria for some people – which is OK as long as it is an informed decision and truly based on personal integrity. Generally, however, our state of happiness is usually a good guide).

What we are trying to catch can be called “Self Deceptions”, which is both negative and condemning, or more constructively “Mistakes”. Although I am also guilty of using the former term sometimes (when I’m feeling lazy), it does infer something done deliberately. That is, fortunately, rarely the case. Mistakes can more easily be rectified, while deliberate deception is a far harder beast to tackle.

I will confuse the issue thoroughly now by stating that the type of mistakes I am referring to still do serve to deceive us.

Here are some simple examples:

I am great at social occasions – yet people tend to put up with me rather than actually enjoy my company.

I am a, (and this is one of my favourites!), ‘nice’ person – yet people become bored with me, annoyed at me, and don’t want to form a (loving) relationship with me.

I am worth it, so a potential partner should be willing to ‘work at’ winning my trust – yet I continue to end up with shitty partners.

I have great instincts - yet I continue to end up with shitty partners.

I am fair and open minded – yet my list of ‘dislikes’ continues to grow.

I prefer bad guys/girls (another of my personal favourites) – yet I always end up hurt and alone again.

I’ll stop there for now, as it could be a huge list. I’ll come back to this later, it permeates so much of our relationship lives.
The fact is, if you are alone and/or unhappy, you are either incredible cursed with bad luck (which is extremely rare) or you are living by one or more mistakes.

When we have piled up a quantity of these mistakes, when that shapes the environment we have come to live in, we need to perform ‘Life Style” suicide.

See Part 5.