I've carried some child-like ideals into my adult life and for the most part they have served to keep me optimistic and a touch unencumbered. With the passage of time, some of these ideals and notions have proved true while others have inevitably withered away under the harsh sobriety of growth and evolution. Recently, one of my more cherished ideals was placed in the spotlight.
I'm not sure whether its because I've always loved Christmas or whether the consistent messages floating around were to blame, but I always believed that being in a relationship would be like getting a really large stack of presents at Christmas! The day would come round and I’d get this magnificent heap of beautifully wrapped gifts and as I opened each exquisitely wrapped box, the presents inside would get better and better. By the time I would be done opening them all, I would sit back, utterly happy and content with so much to keep me amused for days on end: and then my birthday would roll round and I'd get more boxes of gifts...a never ending cycle of joy and delight perfectly presented to me.
So now I had the relationship, bring on the joy and bliss please! I want my box of presents!
Well, it turns out that a relationship is indeed like a box.
The only difference between this box and my fanciful imaginings is that when you unwrap this one...you find nothing inside!
Terribly disappointing, isn't it? But let me finish.
I’m not saying that a relationship is an empty shell, or a misrepresented gift. What I’m saying is that when you "open up" a relationship it's not full of companionship, friendship, love, joy or intimacy or any of those other things we see in other people’s relationships and admire for ourselves. Far from it!
What you start off with is an empty box (it may look pretty on the outside but inside it's bare) and you have to put in things first before you can start taking stuff out.
There is no companionship, romance, intimacy, love or joy in a relationship; it’s in people! The people who are in the relationship. And its these people must put all these good "presents" into the relationship box.
It would be so much easier if relationships came packed and fully loaded with all the things you would both ever need but we all know better than to believe that it will.
And with that realization another childhood fancy passes and I now realize that it's better to just bite the bullet. If you don't and get into it expecting a perfect-relationship-in-a-box and then all you see is this empty space, it can be downright shocking!
And what's more, I do know for sure that:
1. If you want a quality gift out of this box, you are going to have to cough up some quality goods to put in it: don’t expect to put a two-cent present in and pull out a priceless gem a.k.a don’t expect to give your significant other the bare minimum and then when you need something out of the relationship to get the very best.
2. And there’s simple math involved as well! If you take out more than you put in, you will have nothing left but a sore heart and a bear hand. Don’t be just the taker, you have to be willing to be a giver too.
The Beatles are not my thing but I believe they really were onto something when they said, “And in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you make”...
If you do not take the time or make the effort to put the ingredients of a good relationship into the box, please don’t be surprised when you get a raggedy, knock-off version out of the box.
3. Lastly, I've come to believe that the principle applies to all our interpersonal relationships...
Ultimately, how happy you both are will depend on whether you see the empty box as potential to create the best possible relationship-box or whether you keep on thinking you were short changed and someone other than yourself owes you that gift.
