Relationships. It’s as fluid an idea as the lessons we learn in our journey through life. I use the term fluid because no relationship in my opinion stagnates. It’s forever evolving, growing, nourishing sometimes even regressing. As the love in our hearts is the nutrition that feeds it so is the negligence in our acts that withers them away. Once warm and passionate could even fall prey to our reticence. The true journey of the traveler within us is experienced through these relationships and how they affect you. They could be the anchor that weighs you down or a step on a ladder giving you that extra boost in life. The key is to avoid that static status. For anything that stagnates is bound to run stale and lose its vitality.
In its constant dynamic flow, relationships assume the role of shape-shifters. For one face of it could be the soft smile behind eyes beaming with pride on a mother’s expression. While another could be the vile perversion of a sacred bond committing a heinous crime of violating your trust in it. At different points in our life we need to learn to recognize these relationships for what they are, what role they assume in our lives and how much we need to give to them in order to sustain them.
Human beings as an instinct love to attach permanence to a relationship as a source of comfort for them. It becomes an inconvenience for them to actually evaluate a relationship for what it truly is and would rather continue with it. They grow accustomed to its presence and at some point dependent too. That is where relationships can even pose to cripple you. While the importance of relationships cannot be overstated it’s also imperative to identify which serve as toxic or impedance to your individual growth. Permanence shouldn’t be synonymous to a successful relationship in the same way comfort cannot be mistaken for its conducivity. Within this journey of our life as we progress to learn and unlearn lessons and values, as we grow to discover ourselves we are constantly made to confront choices in regards to relationships. That is the art of forming healthy relationships, to be a wise chooser. Once that choice has been made we need to foster its growth and allow its influence on ourselves. This is an art we spend our lives trying to perfect. And in this pursuit of perfection we might be fortunate enough to stumble upon some great relationships and that is the beauty of living.
The author Sara Qazi is a mental health advocate and a doctor in training aiming to save lives.