”…Until Work does us part”. The couple and success in life
The Work, or some of the many things related to it, constitutes important reasons for conflict between couples and factors that prevent the success sought. And this is without considering the relevant inverse relationship, that is, the eventual problems that are generated in the Work as a product of the situation and the dynamics of the couple.
The reason for this is very simple: the couple’s relationship, much more if it involves a family with children, is a conditioning element for the development of the Work that has been defined to adopt in Life. It is not that it is an important or sensitive issue, it is simply a CONDITIONING factor for success. This means that the nature and scope of the work that is done will depend directly on the type of relationship that is maintained, at least during the periods that this relationship remains active (without taking into account the repercussions caused by its “rupture” ).
There is also another important link in these factors: the Work that one develops in Life is essentially linked to the Objectives and the Vision adopted for personal and professional development, therefore the success of the couple’s relationship also conditions the achievement of those objectives and the final fulfillment of ambitions, desires, and dreams.
Each one defines in a personal and intimate way what Success means in their life ( Success is written with a small “s” ), but no one can assume that Success is alien to the nature of the couple’s relationship. On the other hand, whoever affirms that he guides his life without ever considering the existence of a partner, is part of a marginal and irrelevant proportion of the human species, a fraction that does not deserve dedication in this analysis.
The decision that human beings make regarding the partner with whom they will eventually share extensive periods of their existence, their work, and with whom they will form a family, is undoubtedly the most important decision of their life. The decision that will lead you, or not, to success.
This may not be appreciated at the time, but it does not take away from it: no one will successfully achieve the goals they have set for themselves in life if they make the wrong decision in this regard. You will achieve some objectives and have to sacrifice others, you will overcome obstacles at a high cost and you will invest much more than necessary in ordering the course you want to give your life.
Our grandparents said it with good reason: “When certain problems come through the door, love goes out the window.” And this does not take away the importance that Love has for the existence of man, this means that the most important decision in life can not only be taken according to the guidelines of the emotional dimension. And it also means that the participation of Love in this complex equation begins with Self-Love.
Only a person who Loves himself can Love another by adding value and not taking it away to compensate for his deficiencies. Only those who have a solid Self-Love project and complement themselves in others. And, of course, selfishness, arrogance, or arrogance has nothing to do with Self-Love, Self-Love is everything that represents the great verb of Loving oriented towards what one is.
Love is therefore not the justification for forming a couple, Love is the requirement so that first each person finds himself and positions himself healthily and successfully in life.
There are many things that a person with Self-Love is clear about in life, but possibly the most important is that they know what they want to achieve and the way they want to experience the process. That self-confident and coherent person will NOT be happy if they do not follow the path they have set for themselves, and if this is hindered by the relationship, two things will happen simultaneously: the objectives will not be achieved and the relationship will not prosper. In both aspects, some of the most valuable and irrecoverable that human beings have will have been lost: time. In both aspects, many lives will have been affected, many dreams are broken and people unable to be a better version of themselves and experience success.
The first requirement for the formation of a couple that shares Love achieves success and has a healthy and productive relationship (which does not mean that it is free of problems), is therefore that it be made up of people with solid Self-Love. Between two lacking people, a single one is not reached, and when there is a lacking part in the relationship, it will end up leading the whole to deficiency. The lack is not of a material or even intellectual nature, it is the simple and dramatic lack due to not loving oneself enough, since all other lacks are overcome, conquered, and modeled by Self-Love, and for a simple reason: because they want and because it is wanted
There are no insurmountable limitations for the man with healthy Self-Love, much less when an equal Being is added to it.
The GREAT Life, the one that is written with capital letters, is more easily achieved when two propitious beings build the path together. Two go further than one, Two do much more than one does. In this logic, this affirmation of the mediocre person who visualizes an optimal life in solitude does not make any sense. The old and irrefutable biblical wisdom affirms since the beginning of time that “it is not good for man to be alone”, and in this, there is no reference only to “being”, mainly to the success that can be achieved. When Two add up, the result can never be surpassed by the individual parts, period.
The second requirement is that these two people, who love themselves first, also share a basic vision of success in life. Otherwise, the yoke of the relationship becomes unequal for one of them, and finally, as a consequence, it becomes unfavorable for both.
Sharing a vision of success in life strictly means that! It does not mean that the vision of one prevails over the other, nor does it mean that each one is heading to conquer their own. It is a shared vision that guarantees a competitive advantage and the possibility of overcoming the obstacles that are placed in front. A shared vision is not owned by anyone in particular, it is a patrimony of both, regardless of the role that each one plays in the process.
It is not the routine, it is not the “good habits” or the “appropriate customs” that help lead a relationship along the right paths, it is a vision of life that is shared from deep intimacy. It is “that port” to which the ship is heading, “that route” that must be traveled. This is what unites, this is what creates synergy, and this is what ultimately provides meaning and success.
The bigger and more ambitious the vision, the better! Because this guarantees a longer and more intense journey, and this in a healthy relationship constitutes a blessing, because those who Love do not enjoy stagnant waters in the same way that they enjoy how brave the currents of a river of always new water have. Healthy souls and strong spirits do not come together to facilitate survival, they come together to “ride” through life successfully, in better conditions, with the power that the Union provides.
It is time for this truth to be definitively revealed: It is not bad to be ambitious! And if this logic guides the couple’s relationship, so much the better! Ask yourselves for a moment where this world would be if there had been no men with ambition. People (and also couples) have a wrong understanding of what it means to be “conservative, cautious and careful”, and with these wrong premises many times they come together like two birds that only share efforts to build the nest before the imminence of the storm. winter. And this is not being conservative! This is simply being “miserable” with life. Nature has not endowed human beings with the conditions of a pair of birds fearfully awaiting the arrival of the cold, it has endowed them with the ability to conquer the planet and from there look defiantly at the rest of the universe. He has endowed them with the ultimate ability to see beyond limitations and achieve happiness. And the conquest of happiness is an “ambitious” objective, isn’t it?
Couples who have children cannot see them as an obstacle to setting themselves challenges, ambitious goals, and achieving success, tremendous nonsense and absurd conclusion! Having a family cannot be synonymous with being “cautious or careful”, on the contrary, it must be an incentive to conquer, to “expand the store” and gain a few meters of ground from life. And the failure? And the losses? They are only the cost of what you want to achieve, of what you want to acquire. Everything in life has a cost, and it is good that children know this reality early. Failure is the cost that victory demands, the investment that success requires, and it is in exact proportion to the goals that one has set for oneself. Just as a two-liter container of Coca-Cola does not cost the same as a half-liter, Nor are the best things that can be extracted from Life cheap, they demand payment, and they demand overcoming losses and failures. Educating children in a “bubble” of reality alien to natural dynamics does not generate long-term benefits. Involving them wisely in the development of the plans and tasks that parents have set for themselves is the only way to guarantee the generational break of scarcity, mediocrity, and poverty. Finally, if one has not managed to achieve everything that was proposed (which is natural and possible), the children will likely achieve it, those who have been formed in a healthy understanding of ambition, the desire to excel, the desire to “rip” the best things from life and “pay” with a good disposition of spirit the costs that this represents.
The most important challenge on the road that couples undertake through Life is possibly precisely this: overcoming moments of difficulty, those in which the costs demanded by success, goals, desires, and dreams are being paid. It is at these crucial moments that the choice of partner is put to the ultimate test. And right now is when the quality of the “wood” with which each person is made prevails. It will not be enough for one of the two to process things appropriately, both are needed to pass the tests without excessive pain and in good spirits. This can only be found in the close communion of purposes and, of course, in the solidity of Love that two people have built who love themselves and are therefore sure of what they are and what they can do. Life summons two warriors who share purposes and weapons to naturally overcome those stages and emerge from them with the humility of someone who knows they are not the owner of their circumstances but who does have the ability to face them victoriously. Couples who do not have this communion are left on the road.
Now, it is true that Life works and shapes the character of each person every day, but the “wood” of which each person is made is an element of a “structural” nature, and it is identified, measured, and qualified. BEFORE forming the couple. People do indeed have the ability to change, indeed, they must do so many times in Life, but people more easily change their interpretation, assimilation, and responses to Life circumstances, they DO NOT change their nature in the same way, at least not with the same success. The couple IS the one that was chosen at the beginning, where the decision to choose them prevailed, the couple IS NOT what we want it to be today because some circumstance demands it. With the choice of the couple, something similar to what those store signs instruct: “No claims or returns are accepted after the purchase”.
The decision to choose a partner is the most important decision that is made in life. None come close in magnitude, scope, or significance. “Behind every great man or woman, there is a great couple”, at least behind what we can honestly call “greatness”: the possibility of having successfully won the game over the difficulties and obstacles that Life poses.
About the love of a couple, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great Protestant pastor who died in Hitler’s concentration camps said:
“It is not your Love that sustains marriage, rather it is marriage that sustains your Love”.
With this, he made it clear that it is the walk and everything that is found and overcome on the way that consolidates Love, not necessarily having determined to start the journey together.
Isn’t this reason enough to at least choose your travel companion well?
