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| Blogs > 49AK > Out of the Ordinary |
Being in Touch (With Yourself)
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Being in Touch (With Yourself) I hate shopping - particularly shopping for discretionary purchases. Most people think that would be more fun... and in some senses, it is, but the main difference between a discretionary purchase and, say, grocery shopping, is that you replace one logical piece of the decision tree with another: you replace 'do I need this?' with 'do I want this?' The problem is that 'want' and 'need' don't carry the same weight, and while 'afford' is a part of both decisions, 'afford' tends to swamp 'want'. So when I go to the store, in search of something for me, there is a nagging in my gut that just tells me to go without. I learned to pay attention to those feelings that don't seem to have a concrete place in the cost-benefit analysis... like, will I be happy with this, will I regret the purchase, etc. I am sure it has kept me from buying a few things I would have really enjoyed, but I am just as sure it has kept me from some rather large mistakes. When it comes to being in touch with our gut about relationships, I think it is equally important, but the process is very different. When we are making a purchase, there comes a moment where we are presented with a choice - buy, or not - and we rely on our thought process up until that point to allow ourselves to make the choice quickly and seamlessly. In other words, we have pre-decided, but now we're asked to actually pay for our choice. In a relationship, in most cases, there isn't a single decision point, but rather, hundreds or even thousands of them... all of them seemingly insignificant by themselves, but in sum, amount to "making the purchase". Let me be clear - by that, I don't mean (specifically) deciding on a life partner, or getting married, or whatever. What I do mean is, the decision that you make that says, 'do I want more of this relationship, or less?' Let me give you some examples: There are an infinite number of these... some as mundane as what to order at dinner - do I get the expensive entree' or the spaghetti - each thing we do as a part of a relationship is influenced by how we perceive ourselves in it, and it can send a message to the other person that has information about how we feel about the other person... and yes, it can matter what you order at dinner. The meaning might not be clear, but it enters into your decision. Who hasn't heard of the date where one person says, "we had no chemistry, but I got a free dinner?" The point is, each decision is, in our own mind, a micro-referendum on our relationship with that person. The meaning of that decision isn't always clear to the other person - but it doesn't have to be. The only vote that matters is yours. To continue to borrow from the purchase metaphor, a relationship is more like a subscription than a purchase, and the currency in those infinite number of subscription renewals is intimacy. But not every decision-point is equivalent to every other. Some are more significant, some are less. What is different about relationships is that while the transactions are incremental - your subscription renewals - what you are subscribing to is cumulative. That is, when you come to that point in the decision tree about whether you want more of this or less, "this" is all of this - the entire relationship. And that doesn't have to mean that everything is perfect... but more like, are you willing to continue to be a part of what you already have, good or bad. The problem is, for most people, they never make the connection between these small decisions and the impact of the relationship on them. They seem too far removed from each other to be indicative of anything, and even if one is aware, they're reversible, in most cases - so in terms of the message that we send to our partner, we don't necessarily have to be accountable for the message we send (more correctly, how our actions are perceived), as long as we're explicitly clear later. For some people and some decisions, that amounts to thinking better of a decision and correcting it. For others, it is a conscious decision to... for lack of a better word, lie. And this is where being in touch with ourselves comes into play. When we go out to buy the HD television, regardless of the quality of our decision-making process, we make the decision, purchase the television, and take it home. Between people, the decision to strike up a conversation with someone, and the thousands (millions) of intervening decisions that we make associated with that person amount to a relationship. None of the decisions by themselves makes or breaks the deal, but all of them it total do. So I am in touch with my gut. I check it regularly. When I get that little queasy feeling in my gut about whatever happens to be going on in at the moment, I take a look to see what's happening. This is not a front-of-the-mind process for me, unless my gut starts complaining about something. Anyone that knows me well knows that sometimes I seem very measured about what I say and do, because I am thinking about how I feel about something before I do or say something. Some people would call me introspective. My partner thinks I am ignoring her, when I don't answer her within a minute or two of her asking me something. Trust me, I am thinking about it. Here's one thing that doesn't happen with me: I never find myself in a situation where I made decisions where I wasn't in touch with how I felt about them. |
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the smiley face place. I cannot cam, but I am there. Occasionally  .
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the smiley face place. I cannot cam, but I am there. Occasionally .~d it is a tilde with 1d I am CST. Online, usually, 2PM
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