Relationships

I've been thinking about the relationships people have with one another. The relationships between siblings. The relationships between you and your parents. The relationships with your different friends. All complex and unique. I've started to realize how selfish I am when it comes to them. Most of the time I can only think of myself and how the relationships are effecting myself. But that is absolutely ridiculous, because I don't care who you are, at some point in your life a relationship is going to be strained, and all you can think about is how it's effecting you. How they are so annoying and selfish. How they never see your side.

But how many times do we STOP, and look at their side? How many times do we ask the question, am I the one causing the tension? In my case pretty much never ha ha. But I've really been trying to lately. I think the best piece of advice I've ever heard (I think it was from my mom), was that if things aren't going well in a relationship, you can't expect the other person to change. What you can do (if the relationship is worth it), is change for them.

Basically if someone is doing something annoying, you can't make them stop, not if they really don't want to. What you can do is to stop letting it annoy you. Which drove me nuts at the time. If someone loved me, they'd change for me right? Well hopefully. But really the only thing that we can control in relationships is how we deal with problems and situations come up. We can never control the other person, only ourselves. So ultimately our happiness is up to ourselves. Should we have relationships with people that always take and never give? No, that's unhealthy. But should we look in the mirror and consider giving this time instead of taking? Absolutely.