Glimpses of Our Ideal Selves
March 3, 2010
If you haven’t seen it already, I’m alerting you to an awesome article by my buddy, Nick Sparks, on how and why long-term relationships can be so hard to sustain and grow.
My favorite parts:
“I firmly believe that we are attracted to what we’re attracted to because that particular thing happens to be what will most directly cause us to go/grow where and how we need to at that particular point in time.”
“Notice that this theory includes all things that many people could consider unhealthy or negative. While this may be the case in the short term, I believe that these actions are nevertheless the best path for a person to take. Even if it feels like you’re swimming upstream, the current is always carrying you in the right direction.
Attraction to other human being provide us the strongest and most direct path to this personal growth, and therein lies the reason why we are so crazily drawn to other people. I firmly believe that without women, men would end up wallowing in some gutter in the most depressing scenario imaginable, and vice-versa - with the mechanism through which this happens being one of the most brilliantly designed systems in the world.”
“Because these two versions of ourself, the ideal and the reality, are now forced to stare each other down face to face, this point can be especially troubling. We being to feel depression-like withdrawals and other aspects of our life begin to suffer, including work and other relationships. Our openness is replaced by jealousy - and those fears and insecurities that this attraction was put in our place to overcome begin to show their ugly head.
As strange as it sounds, this is a point to celebrate. Up until now, these personal demons remained for the most part under the surface, but through this beautiful process, they are now brought to some level of light where they can actually be fought.”
Play on, The Asian Rake
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