Why did I ignore Kara’s offer to nurture our budding relationship?

“When life gives you people around you, make relationships with them.” -Unknown

When I was in my mid-twenties, I had a very good friend. Her name was Kara.
I used to call her to meet in a restaurant.
In our first few meetings we became pretty close and I, probably we both, felt that we were moving in a different direction of our friendship.
Good friendship easily turns into dating if chemistry and life philosophy match each other’s internal calibration.
I remember, it was our 4th or 5th meeting. All of the sudden she questioned me about what we talk about in a restaurant?
How do we share our thoughts and experiences when we talk in a restaurant?
She said life is natural. Isn’t it a good idea to test it upon our natural flow?
I became speechless, I couldn’t understand what she meant?

I still remember at one point, she proposed to me to meet in a small grocery store.
She said that we can share and exchange a lot of things on the aisle of the grocery store rather than sitting in the corner of the restaurant.
I wondered at that moment what kind of girl she was who preferred to meet in the grocery store instead of a cozy restaurant.
How many of us prefer a grocery store instead of a restaurant for dating?
After that meeting she called me once but I never responded.

Now I’m a bit mature in all directions, I laugh at myself remembering that moment.
Even though she was a few years younger than me at that time, she still showed a deeper understanding of the essence of a relationship.
I know now, but I didn’t know back then.
I think I was definitely immature and superficial in my thoughts to build a relationship.

Ego is a killer of relationship

Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD, author of “Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People” teaches us to see the “important” people in our life, and how and why they are the way they are. She also teaches how these people can really impact how we live and who we are. I can totally correlate my thoughts now with Kara’s thoughts. I was pretty immature back then. 

I know now that perfection, sound judgment, and proper understanding never comes only with age in our lives.
Josh Waitzkin was only nine years old when he won his first national championship in chess. His book “The Art of Learning“, tells his remarkable story of personal achievement and shares the principles of learning and performance that have propelled him to the top.
How come he became such a good player in such a thoughtful game like chess at such a young age?
Well, I guess, it all depends upon how we train our mind and see things in our lives irrespective of ages.

In today’s technologically driven world, at the highest levels of any kind of relationship, everyone is great no matter the age or maturity.
Nowadays, the decisive factor is rarely who knows more about the relationship, but who applies the essence of the relationship.

The flow of life, actually, is just a relationship and its movement how it passes us within it.
There are so many relationships, relationship to girlfriend or boyfriend, relationship to spouse, relationship to parents, relationship to siblings, relationship to kids, relationship to neighbors, relationship to boss, and relationship to colleagues, and so many others.
How we understand these relationships is very complex but if we try to understand each one from scratch without any superiority and ego in our mind, each can be very simple too.

Emotions like superiority and ego stopped me from responding to Kara after her offer to meet me in a grocery store.
Any kind of excellent relationship remains sustainable only if there is no judgment for the person next to you.
I remember that one of my students told me he grew up all his childhood at his aunt’s house.
From the age one to five, he doesn’t remember anything but he remembers every detail of his aunt house, and what time their parents dropped off and picked him up from aunt’s house.
This clearly indicated to me that his real relationship was only with his aunt and her house.
I guess there is a fundamental truth in how we should grow our relationship as parents to our kids.

Accepting discomfort deepens relationship

Few days ago I met my friend Nick who works in our department.
I saw that he was very impatient.
He was standing in line at the food buffet with his wife.
He had a project to finish as he said but that tension was not away on the buffet line.
He was in discomfort even though he was with his wife and other people’s gathering.
This still counts how we have nourished our relationship, it may be with people or with occupation or with other situations in life.
It’s so interesting to learn about people’s relationships as an observer when they are in various moments.

We see people’s different behaviors when sudden discomfort bombards them.
When people encounter unexpected rain in the street, what do they do?
Many will run with their hands over their heads to avoid wet.
Very few will smile and enjoy the wet clothes.
Some will smile and take deep breaths and continue their normal walk.
People’s reactions to any surprises show their understanding and their preparation for controlling any incoming discomforts.
Our relationship with comfort, with discomfort, and with surrounding people make us who we are.

I think the understanding of a relationship in life is like floating on a swimming pool.
Our relationships grow in the same way as our life builds up from a child to adult stage in our lives.
As a child, there is no fear, no sense for the danger of drowning.
The water feels amazing and fluid, and natural flow allows for creative steps and fast learning and adaptation.
Children can swim very soon, always experimenting themselves with a desire for innovation and new challenges.
If they happen to fail in any case-no problem, they just get back on with no hesitation.
But then, as we get older, we become more aware of the risk of drowning and injury.
The pool becomes dangerous if we don’t know how to swim.
Sudden efforts would be humiliating for adults but not for children.

As I said before, as an adult, when Kara offered to meet me in the grocery store, I simply judged her and stopped any new discoveries and challenges inside me to nurture our budding relationship.
I became totally egoistic.
Do you know why older people hesitate to learn from young people?
Because of ego.
As a result, my growing relationship with Kara ended immaturely.
My inner pool wasn’t fluid, so I couldn’t stay up on water longer.
I didn’t take any test and action for that relationship to grow, I simply ignored it.
What possibly could happen if I would have accepted to meet in the grocery store?
Nothing.
I would definitely learn more of her side and she would learn more of my side.

What I learnt over the time is that tests and actions are needed at any time in our life especially when something is going in the direction of discomfort, crisis, and challenges.
We can take a lesson from the basketball legend, Michael Jordan.
Michael Jordan, the basketball legend, gave more last minute shots to win the game for his team than any other player in the history of the NBA.
What is also important is that Michael Jordan also missed more last minute shots to lose the game for his team than any other player.
What made him such a vibrant and successful player is not the perfect shots that he delivered but to accept and enjoy the tests, challenges, and actions at times of discomfort.

Roland Lazenby, author of “Michael Jordan: The Life” says “For all Michael Jordan’s greatness, there is a mixture of complex family with a darker side, a ruthless competitor attitude, and a love of high stakes.”

Remember, depth always beats breadth everywhere in any area.
It applies equally in life and relationships.
Depth opens a path for the intangible, unconscious, and creative components of our hidden potential.
To look for depth in any relationship is one of the key components of human potential to flourish.
If we don’t pick up a friend’s call at 4 am in the morning then our friendly relationship with him or her is not deep.
If my daughter at a time of crisis don’t call me first as a mom or dad then my relationship to my daughter isn’t deep.
As a parent If we fail to become the most deep friend for our son and daughter then neither we are understanding them nor the relationship.

Deep relationship is a full time task

When I was undergrad, I thought I have many trusted friends but over time each relationship lost our flow, and we became worse and worse at reading the subtle signs of a quality relationship.
Soon enough, learning becomes unlearning in relationship because each one of us needs space to grow, by some reason I didn’t grow that space and lost it.
The stronger friend, I found, is often the one who doesn’t interpret the relationship but only practice.

Healthy relationship requires a lot of intuition within us and there are a lot of variations of it.
Many people used to think that intuition is a natural gift.
Many artists, performers, and scientists often think of intuition as a catalyst to act.
In my view as a scientist, intuition is our personal litmus test which makes us aware about our unconscious and conscious mind.
It is basically the glue that makes us stick in a relationship.
If we don’t understand this glue then it’s harder to find a depth in any relationship.

Sigmund Freud, a neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis said “A normal relationship utilizes only the conscious mind but a quality relationship utilizes a lot of the unconscious mind.”
The conscious mind, though amazing, can only take in and work with a certain limited amount of information at a time.
If we forget our marriage anniversary due to workload then our relationship with our spouse is not even normal, our relationship works only consciously and occasionally.
But if we never forget our marriage anniversary and spouse’s birthday then our relationship with our spouse is a deep relationship, this relationship utilizes a lot of our unconscious mind.
After going through fifteen plus years marriage with three kids, I learnt that a relationship isn’t a one time task, it’s a 24/7 full time task.

When we practice a relationship regularly, it works the same way as skilled scientist.
Skilled scientist internalizes a large amount of data.
Once we reach a certain level of scientific expertise, the challenge is how all this expansive dataset to navigate and put to use.
Exactly the same way how to put a relationship to work also internalizes a large amount of information.
It’s the acceptance of information inside us and its correlation with the person next to us for mutual benefit.
Always one step at a time.
I couldn’t tolerate Kara’s offer.
I couldn’t correlate her thinking to my thinking.
I couldn’t see mutual inclusion between us.

Conclusion

Have you ever called your married daughter at 3pm Monday afternoon?
Don’t hesitate that it’s Monday afternoon, she might be busy at work, just call and see what happens.
Ask her favorite strawberry smoothie whether she is drinking nowadays or not which she used to love after coming from school in her teens.
Your relationship with your daughter goes in a whole different direction even if she is married now with two kids and long gone from your home many years ago.

Remember, if your financial advisor calls you only to give bad news about market then your relationship as a client and financial advisor is not going to survive long.
But if your financial advisor also calls you to give good news about market then your client advisor relationship will be long lasting.
This is how we humans are designed to grow and evolve.

Robin Dunbar, PhD, author of “Friends” says “Humans are good relationship hunters.” This book “Friends” is a eye opener to understand the number and quality of our friendships, their influences on our happiness, health and mortality.

If we can’t listen quietly for a few minutes from our spouse or kids or parents or siblings or boss then our life is distracted.
Distracted life can not nurture any relationship, we must work to order our life first to enrich our relationship.
If I can’t remain patient for a few minutes in any discomfort then I have to practice walking many miles on discomfort to understand its relationship to me. Lesson learned from Kara.

Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.

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