Sunday, March 02, 2008

What have you learnt from your past relationships?


My dear readers,

Your self-proclaimed love guru is back with this write up. I have been trying to write on love for sometime now, but as they say you cannot plan love. But what I have realized is that you cannot plan writing about love either. Today, I was planning to write something on the Union Budget 2008-09, but it was not to be. I was browsing through one of my friend's profile where her response to the question, "From my past relationships I have learnt..." caught my eye and forced me to think. Before I tell you what her answer was, let me tell you what I have learnt. I have learnt that any relationship cannot be built on conditions. Love is about selflessness. Any relationship built on conditions cannot last. Conditions reduce a relationship to a meagre agreement, a mere Memorandum of Understanding which is bound to be broken sooner or later. Whenever an expression of love is associated with an 'if' or 'but', the expression is not entirely true. I hope you would agree.

When you love someone, you love a person as a whole. Now that person has some positives and some negatives (again these vary on how you perseive those qualities). The definition of good and bad may vary, but the eternal truth is that both good and bad qualities are equally responsible for defining a person. So when you say you love a person but at the same time try to convince him/ her to change certain things because you do not like them, don't you attempt to change the very definition of that person? So ask yourself whether you speak the truth whenever you express your love to that person. I feel that love is all about accepting the person as he/she is - to love the qualities you like and accept the qualities you may not like. You need to realize that the good qualities are many folds heavier than the bad qualities and that is the reason why you love the one you do.

Coming back to my friends answer to the question, she had written ,"Love is not about compromises." Taking a cue from this and that the next step up from love has always been marriage for her and the fact that she is soon to be married, I must say that her understanding of love and hence marriage is something which I do not agree with. It would have been an ideal world if we would not have to make compromises, especially in love and in marriage. But the fact is we make daily compromises. The key is to make compromises that you are happy about. That way the realtionship lasts. The key to a relationship is that it is mutually beneficial to both, that it is mutually symbiotic, that the two help each other grow. But when you are not happy with the compromises you make, when one person grows at the cost of another, that relationship becomes parasitic and it dies out sooner or later. I guess the sooner we realize that we have to make compromises and also where to draw the line, we would all have a healthy and lasting love life.

I know the topic is very debatable and as always I am eager to receive your comments. But this time around it is to know what you have learnt from your past relationships. So do keep them coming.

May a thousand love bloom and may all have happy endings!
Amen.

-CK-

5 comments:

Varun said...

The self-proclaimed love guru has got it right this time. I cannot really write about what I have learnt from my personal relationships but i can certainly write about what I have seen from within close quarters. You've got the compromise part correct as well as the quality (good/bad) part correct. You have missed out on the expectations. Expectations people have from their partner. Sometimes its way too high and people wilt trying to keep up to that level of expectation. You can tell me that expectation is somewhere a subset of compromise but I feel it’s definitely something to think about. You are the love guru... So you need to tell me...

Keep posting... I’ll be the first one to comment all the time :)

Arnab said...

Oops...what I have in here???? The guru...not only for matters of the heart...but every other thing but one, for which this guru was my disciple!! (As I had the misfortune, kidding dude... of watching this guy from closed quarters).
Yes, my friend being in love and out of it...then you tend to think "out of it"?? No, you are never out of love. But when you are in love, its all about loving the person the way the person is! You compromise with the negatives and live in fantasy with the positives. Yes, we do tend to think "What is compromise in love?"...but unknowingly we do compromise. But yes, Marriage is not a land of fantasy. As someone rightly said, "If love is blind, marriage is definitely an eye opener!"
I would add here, stop looking at those lines on Orkut my friend, it ends to bring in the guru in you.

Keep posting Guru ji.......

Luv 'n' Luk
Arnab

Akshat Jain said...

"I feel that love is all about accepting the person as he/she is - to love the qualities you like and accept the qualities you may not like."

I could agree to all but the above. Obviously a person, must accept the bad qualities in others. While trying to accept our own mistakes and correcting them is equally important.

Why should we ourselves assume that the other person should make compromises in love or accept our bad habits? Doesn't that makes us selfish in love?

I think the above statement you have written is for other people to accept and not for yourself to do.

What I think best is Win-Win situation, where you adapt to other persons liking and make him/her fall in love with you, rather than just be accepted.

The Girls statement is almost true in my opinion..."love is not about compromise"...and it shouldn't be!

Shefali said...

Thanx CK for this wondeful post...u wud be amazed to knw that i wanted to start my blog with the same topic...but as u said Love cannot b plannned neither the write up on luv can b planned.

U need to have that mood and that conviction to write sumthing on luv..the same way u shud have the passion to continue with ur loved ones despite of his/her -vess. The extent of ur likeness to stay with him will decide ur passion. No person in this world is perfect...other than what they show in movies...

Conditions and adjustements will take a back seat if u really want sumone to stay with u forever....Seflessness as u coined the term for love yes to some extent its true but actually thats ur selfishness that drives u for that selflessness....the desire of having him or her forever..If and Buts are part and parcel with everything. But those ifs and buts are just extras...its always the likeness towards a person that really matters.

U love a person as that person makes u feel good...either its good or bad qualities of him/her...so where the point of compromises come...
U need to compromise only when u hate sumthing...Loving a person mens loving him/her in totality...
Simple rule...+ves will nullify the -ves. Only if u wish to balance your relationship....else the ball is in ur court and u need to think what u really wish to have.

Answering your question what i learned from my past relationship...i wud like to answer very briefly.
Never ever have blind faith on sumone as every other person in this world is different from you...You cant receive the same as what u put in...No expectations and along with that never go with the saying "Love is Blind".

Keep us busy with your thoughtful posts.
Luv
Shef.

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