Creating Sustainable Relationships, Part 3

GS How do we do this in our relationships? You wrote that "sustainable abundance is found by looking closely at our triple bottom line." WM Yes-work, love and play. One of the main things getting in the way of sustainable abundance in our relationships is distraction. When human beings spend so much time in passive entertainment such as television, or in some form of active but mediated engagement such as texting or cell-phoning, we're likely to feel lots of superficial intimacy. And we get numb to genuine connection. When we accept anything abnormal long enough, it becomes our new normal. So even though we may spend hours on Facebook, we can lose the basis of friendship. Friendship exists on two levels. The first is the level of mutual benefit: you'll scratch my back if I scratch yours. I'm getting something out of the relationship that I value. If I quit valuing that, I'm going to let the relationship deteriorate. Most of our relationships are at that level-and that may be the way it has always been. But the deepest and most satisfying relationship is based on mutual advocacy. I don't need to get anything from you. What I'm interested in is you living the best life you can, you achieving a sense of satisfaction and contentment. I'm going to advocate you, because I want your happiness and your well-being. That's a very high level of love. Most of us have those relationships with lifelong friends who are nonjudgmental because they see us beyond our behavior and our flaws. They somehow have a glimpse into our soul, or our essential self. That kind of friendship doesn't say, "I'm not going to call her because she didn't call me," or "I'm not going to have them over because they never invite us over." We never get into keeping score. When two people are engaged in this type of relationship, there is almost the energy of a third person; the relationship becomes greater than either of the two individuals, and it's extremely satisfying. There's an abundance of common ground and a lack of distraction from trivial flaws. In our society we've lost what it takes to create that kind of friendship, because we're living beyond the human speed. We're obsessed with superficial intimacy. We know a lot of facts about other people's lives, and maybe even their superficial opinions, but not who they are. Knowing these thinGS about each other doesn't make us intimate. It's only when we have this feeling of mutual advocacy-that I want the very best for you, no matter what-that we can have a sense of trust and acceptance that transcends normal life and normal relationships. All the studies into what brings the greatest satisfaction in life agree that it's human relationships. Many surveys have looked into where the happiest people live in the world; almost universally they are in societies where intimate relationships are most highly valued-even when people's economic well-being isn't very high. Once people get to a level where they're not worried about dying from lack of food, money or health-even if they're living only a little above subsistence level-if their relationships are rich, trusting and long-lived, they report happiness as being very high. GS How do extroversion and introversion figure into relationships? WM Being an introvert or an extrovert has little to do with whether you can maintain intimate relationships. Introversion and extroversion have a lot to do with people's opportunities. Extroverts tend to create more opportunities for themselves simply because they meet more people and they're willing to talk about their interests. Anyone can maintain only a finite number of close relationships, so extroverts don't have any more of them than introverts do. The concept of extroversion and introversion is situationally specific. Most people, even extroverts, who walk into a roomful of strangers will have difficulty initially. They usually try to find one person to start a conversation with, and then they begin to network-which is exactly what an introvert might do in the same situation. The difference is that if an extrovert came into a room of people he already knew, then he might become the life of the party within 10 minutes. So extroversion and introversion have a lot to do with the feeling of emotional safety and emotional comfort. Most extroverts have decided the payoff of working through that fear of being misunderstood or rejected is greater than the risk of being isolated or rejected. Again, it's not how many friends you have; it's the quality of your relationship with those friends. If introverts feel comfortable enough in a one-on-one situation with a trusted friend, they're going to reveal enough of themselves (and elicit the same from the other person) to begin to build this mutual advocacy. We do need to put some effort into these friendships, though, because our sense of life satisfaction will be very superficial without it. Imagine being in a beautiful mansion all by yourself, looking at a beautiful sunset. When you're standing next to someone enjoying a beautiful sunset, and you have a very good idea of what she's experiencing, and she has a very good idea of what you're experiencing, you don't need words except to say, "Wow, this is beautiful." That intimate sharing of an experience is one of the most satisfying human experiences possible. And to have that routinely with friends or a spouse or family is the greatest source of deep life satisfaction. GS So why don't people put a higher priority on this? WM I would say that those who reach the highest levels of maturity do. But if we're at that second level, where we define ourselves by what we own, or what we've achieved, or our roles, then our self-definition is always yelling at us to get to work. Source: www.vision.org