Relationships: Right vs Love (Part 4 of 4).
In this current blog series, I want you to consider this question: Do you want to be right or do you want to be in a love relationship? When you think of your most important personal relationships, is it your intention to pursue what is right or do you want to pursue what brings you love and closeness?
You see, those who want to be right are very competitive people. Those who want to be in a love relationship view these personal and close relationships as a place to not be competitive. Those who want to be right are out to prove that Michael Jorden is the best basketball player of all time and are fine with arguing and doing point-counter point regarding why they think Jordan is the best versus Kobe. But those who want a love relationship are tired of arguing and fighting and they are tired of always having tug of wars with their partner.
People who want to pursue a love relationship need love. They want love. When you give love and when you receive love, then you form a close and intimate relationship. Healthy people pursue love because they want lots of trust, lots of empathy, and lots of intimacy. Those who want love like being close to someone and they like to feel the intimacy and trust they experience when they engage with someone who also wants a love relationship.
You see people who want love recognize they live in a world that values competition, stress, and demand upon their life. Life is difficult and life is challenging. Attempting to go to school, the world of work, traffic, deadlines and difficulties with co-workers and others all lead people to want to escape this stress and enter into a healthy relationship to have fun. When you pursue love, you are wanting to stop the madness and the demands and stress life brings and find comfort and care in the engaging of a love relationship.
People who want love also want safety. They want to feel free, not to walk on eggshells, and feel accepted for who they are. They feel safe and secure with someone who loves them and who wants to pursue being loved. A safe relationships reduces the fears, worries and being suspicious that a lot of people who are out to prove their point are experiencing. Always trying to prove you are right leads to mistrust, control, looking for evidence that people are obeying you and doing tasks your way. All of this builds and creates an unhealthy relationship.
But people who are wanting to pursue a healthy relationship have as their intention to be loved and not having the need to be right. Love conquers right and love wins. People who want to be right think that this will lead to two people winning. But it does not. It only leads to suspiciousness and competition. But people who have as their intention to love and build a loving relationship are also wanting to win but their idea of winning is using the experience of love to conquer stress, fear, and hurt.
To be right hurts others. But to pursue love heals others. People who want to be right and win will hurt someone else in their demand to be right. People who pursue love and healthy relationships want to heal and bring care and empathy to one another. People who want to be right will bring hurt but most of the time, they don’t care. All they care about is proving their point that they are right. But people who pursue love as their main intention are wanting to bring healing to hurting people. Hurting people hurt people and those who want to be right will hurt.
But those who want to pursue love are tired of being hurt, and are looking for someone to love and someone to love them and bring words of comfort and care to their hurting heart. When they do this, they are wanting someone to bring acts of love and care to them to help ease the stress and demands of life so that they know in the midst of the difficulties of life, they can call out to the one they love with the reassurance that this person will be there for them.
So, I go back to my original question: Do you want to be right or do you want to pursue a love relationship? Pursuing a right relationship in a sports bar discussing who the greatest basketball player with your buddies was, might be okay. But when you can think of five people who really are the most important and most personal people in your life, such as your spouse, your child, your sibling, your best friend, than I would encourage you to need love and ask for love from them. Because when you do this over and over again over weeks, months, and years, I promise you, you will have healthy relationships and a healthy life.