Sooner or later, all friendships are challenged by change. The sage understands that with acceptance and understanding friends can grow separately without growing apart.
~ Today's Daily Quote from The TaoWoods Center ~
While the focus of today's message is on "friends", one specific type of friend that sprung to my mind is a monogamous spouse or partner. How often have any of us heard a friend opine that their marriage/partnership is over because Jane or Bob "is no longer the person I married"?
When I have heard these types of sentiments, my initial reaction (probably NOT the most sympathetic one) is DUH! As each of us grows and matures, we change. That's part of life.
When we each pop out of the womb (or, maybe, the test tube), we're pretty close to a blank slate. Each moment -- as we encounter new sensations and observations -- it changes our perceptions of who we are and how we fit into the world. While Taoist thought suggests that it would be beneficial for us to retain some of the wonderment of life that we experience as children, I'm fairly certain Lao Tzu was not suggesting we live our entire lives in diapers or suckling at mother's breast!
As we wend our way from an infant to a child to adolescence to young adulthood and beyond, we continue to encounter new ideas, sensations and observations. We also find that we understand many of these routine encounters in different ways. Consequently, we are two things simultaneously -- always us, yet always someone new.
In a marriage/partnership, you have two people who were once separate entities who are now separate, yet intertwined. This intertwinement -- by its very nature -- will necessarily change the two individual parts. So, the person you married can't remain the same one you are married to UNLESS that person completely ignores your presence in the so-called relationship and, even then, that person still is changing due to other stimuli.
In essence, no marriage would survive if one or more of the partners remained the person first married. It would mean that such a person literally died on the wedding day and the other spouse/partner was sharing a married life with a corpse.
~ Today's Daily Quote from The TaoWoods Center ~
While the focus of today's message is on "friends", one specific type of friend that sprung to my mind is a monogamous spouse or partner. How often have any of us heard a friend opine that their marriage/partnership is over because Jane or Bob "is no longer the person I married"?
When I have heard these types of sentiments, my initial reaction (probably NOT the most sympathetic one) is DUH! As each of us grows and matures, we change. That's part of life.
When we each pop out of the womb (or, maybe, the test tube), we're pretty close to a blank slate. Each moment -- as we encounter new sensations and observations -- it changes our perceptions of who we are and how we fit into the world. While Taoist thought suggests that it would be beneficial for us to retain some of the wonderment of life that we experience as children, I'm fairly certain Lao Tzu was not suggesting we live our entire lives in diapers or suckling at mother's breast!
As we wend our way from an infant to a child to adolescence to young adulthood and beyond, we continue to encounter new ideas, sensations and observations. We also find that we understand many of these routine encounters in different ways. Consequently, we are two things simultaneously -- always us, yet always someone new.
In a marriage/partnership, you have two people who were once separate entities who are now separate, yet intertwined. This intertwinement -- by its very nature -- will necessarily change the two individual parts. So, the person you married can't remain the same one you are married to UNLESS that person completely ignores your presence in the so-called relationship and, even then, that person still is changing due to other stimuli.
In essence, no marriage would survive if one or more of the partners remained the person first married. It would mean that such a person literally died on the wedding day and the other spouse/partner was sharing a married life with a corpse.
Hi r t
ReplyDeleteGreat writing/sharing about change as I am struggling with a friend of 10 years who has, well, REALLY changed, and I read what you said and I get it, that we are all always changing - but she became mean, and hurtful, and power hungry, and I cannot ally with it. If you get a chance to read my latest post on respect I would love your thoughts.
Love to you
Gail
peace.....