The grass isn’t greener on the other side. It is green where you water it.
As I grow older (and wiser), one lesson life has taught me is that NOT EVERYONE IS REPLACEABLE.
Many times, in our refusal to face the truth or based on our arrogance and limited perspective, we make some statements, and we assume it is a general rule. This philosophy becomes the bedrock for how we (mis)treat, depreciate and abuse relationships.
You often hear people say, “Any friend, any employee, any individual, any partner can be replaced.” Statements like these are merely loud expressions of ignorance and infantilism. I used to speak like this too.
It is statements like these that makes us careless and imperceptive with relationships. Such arrogance (and crassness) makes people walk out on their relationship under the illusion that their partners can be “replaced”. Many marriages have crumbled and lives shattered because someone assumed the other is replaceable.
Apologizing doesn’t always mean that you’re wrong, and the other person is right. It just means that you value your relationship more than your ego.
A major reason why people don’t sit to work out the differences in relationships, friendships and partnerships is because we believe there are (better) substitutes. Such conjecture also makes employers mistreat employees and a rationale why some exploit and abuse others.
But, as you live longer on this side (AND AS YOU GROW WISER), you will understand and accept that NOT everyone can be replaced.
Assumptions are the termites of relationships.
A great relationship is about two things. First, appreciating the similarities, and second, respecting the differences.
Some relationships are for a season, some are for a reason, and some are for a lifetime and are strategic to your life and purpose. Your ability to identify the nature and value of all the relationships in your life and give them the needed attention, patience, understanding, compromise, and sacrifice will significantly affect your life.
You have to work at relationships. You can’t keep walking out of them each time something goes wrong.
So, here are the nuts and bolts:
- Genuinely cherish relationships.
- Genuinely express value for/to the people in your life.
- Be patient with the phases/challenges in your relationships with people
- Genuinely make sacrifices and compromises for your relationships.
- Genuinely let the people in your life know how much they mean to you.
- Don’t always walk out on relationships, work on them.
- Never see/use people as “things”.
While you may assume you have “tolerated” many people in your life, please be aware that many more people have tolerated you, and more continue to tolerate you… quietly!
Again, always remember, NOT EVERYONE IS REPLACEABLE!
PS: This post applies to ALL forms of relationships.
