Making a relationship work better

In most things we do, we will work with other people to accomplish individual or group goal(s). Therefore it is important to nourish our relationships. Today I have learnt about three things that could be barriers to a better relationship.

1. Being available all the time. In real life, and if you love yourself, you cannot be available to people all the time. You need to be nice to yourself. Give yourself space and time. Your being must be in good conditions if you would like to have a good relationship with others. Learn to say “NO” most of the time and even to opportunities that you have no interest in. We need our own time to recover mentally and physically.
2. Allowing others to take advantage of us. The world has three kinds of people: the giver, the taker and the matcher. The principle is clear, give more to receive more. Giving can be of different forms including setting your time apart for someone. Most people think of giving material things such as money, clothes, food etc. What I am doing right now is giving you the knowledge I have obtained after reading and going through courses. Therefore, I am a giver to you. I don’t expect to get anything in return from you unless you feel like these few lines have been a blessing to you and you want to give back. The taker will eventually have no good relationship because s/he wants everything for himself. The matcher wants to receive the same amount or more compared to what he has given. He is also wicked. But givers can also fail when they are not true (authentic) to themselves. They allow others to take advantage of them. How can you give something that your existence depends on it? Be a successful giver by being authentic to yourself. You can pick a lot of examples from different books or even people around you. I am yet far to be a successful giver but I am working on it.
3. Blaming others. Let me be crystal clear. You cannot change anyone to be the way you want in any relationship. However, you and I can take responsibility to make sure our relationships become successful. Let’s not blame the other for what is not working well or not working at all in our relationships. No one is perfect and when two imperfect people meet, challenges are inevitable. Let’s ask ourselves, ‘What can I do to make this better?’ Regardless of who is messing up in the relationship, we have our contribution to make it better. There is one book I recommend reading by Dan Millman titled ‘Way of a peaceful warrior’ in which you can get to deepen more on this issue.