This article is about responsibility, both in my personal life and within a relationship. It is a reflection on how I perceive responsibility, both as a single person and in a relationship. It is a description of how I view my life and the potential of a relationship.
I am solely in charge of my own life. It would be totally irresponsible of me to be totally responsible for another person's life. So when I share my life with other people, the boundaries will rise up when necessary.
Each of us is only responsible for his own life, outside of a loving relationship. It would help to clearly define those boundaries in a relationship so that the other person always is able to handle theirs.
However, true love means that each person in a relationship be emotionally supportive of each other. It does not mean we take responsibility for another person's life. Rather it means that we are responsible for providing emotional support for each other.
Deciding to be responsible for our mutual lives together implies that we be responsible to each other. The whole goal of a relationship is to acting interdependent on each other.
Self-reliance is balanced by reliance on each other for emotional support. It does not imply that we absolve ourselves of being responsible to each other.
I cannot live another person's life. It is enough to live my own. Any potential lover ought to realize that love does not excuse them of behaving in a responsible manner that promotes stability both emotionally and mentally.
Neither side ought to take each other for granted. For that is what love is about: seeing each other as worthy and vital to the relationship.
Returning to my own life, I show responsibility by paying my own bills and taking care of my material needs, from paying rent to paying for food. However, my sense of individuality requires adjustments (less independence) within the context of a relationship.
If I am blessed with a relationship, then so be it.
As for now, I am content with being single. Although the single life is overrated, and the loneliness is sometimes more than I can bear, I plan to take each day as it comes and focus on what the day brings me.
Is being alone so bad? Not really. It only becomes stressful when a tinge of loneliness comes over me. Meditation helps me here, as well as being thankful to all the blessings in my life.
Such blessings include being alive, the ability to feel emotions and maintain emotional control, having a job, paying bills, discussing matters of importance with my friends, visiting my mother weekly, and maintaining control over my life.
Most certainly, falling in love with a lover is also a blessing. In fact, it is a double blessing since we would be blessed with each other's presence. Hopefully our mutual respect for each other will moderate our love for each other.
In a relationship, each party wants to care for the other person's feelings and discuss their expectations in the relationship to make it work and last a long time. Then they can work towards the goal of balancing their sense of self with sense of selflessness that a relationship demands.
By selflessness is meant emotional support for the other person's emotional well being, and the willingness to sacrifice selfish desires for the willingness to share resources to help exist as a couple.
Both partners in a relationship develop a sense of us to complement the sense of self as individual. Thus there is a sharing of resources and of their time together.
I find a relationship to be moderately stressful because my own independence is compromised by the interdependence on which a relationship is based. There is less alone time and more times together, and sometimes this leads me to go with the flow and see what happens.
This is because the unknown qualities of the relationship exist. Unless she sincerely shares her thoughts with me about us and the relationship, I do not know what she wants from the relationship. Likewise, unless I share my thoughts with her about us and the relationship, she would not know what she wants from the relationship.
However, I do see that the anxiety I have about a relationship is based on the shortness of previous relationships that I have had. Perhaps I am intimidated by being with a woman, and this affects both my thoughts and feelings about myself and about her.
Overall, I realize that the stress of being in a relationship is a given. As well, my coping skills have improved over the years so I am prepared for a relationship, should it arise.
Yet I would much rather remain single because of the freedom. Yet I also realize there is freedom in a relationship i.e. by relying on a partner, a person does not have to be totally self reliant, though it is useful to maintain self reliance when apart for extended periods of time.
Why do I like being single as opposed to being in a relationship? I am free of responsibilities that come with being in a relationship i.e. shared life, mutual interdependence, and sense of us.
I doubt that I am that selfish that I cannot handle being in a relationship. At the moment, I am not that selfless yet so as to be able to fully exist as a partner for another person.
As I said, if it happens, then it happens. Being single is not that selfish of a relationship when my thoughts are on my friends, my family and even strangers. It depends on the situation, but I have a handle on my life.
In any case, I am blessed with being single and am comfortable with being alone. My loneliness is handled through a strong reliance on meditation and prayer, along with sublimation of desire by reading books and inspirational material. I also keep a journal and post often to this blog.
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