Ideal State...

I have to yet research and read about what great people, and great religions say about this topic. But still I would like to note down my own thoughts as they come to me based on my day to day, very normal and usual experiences.

Here I will write about the ideal state in a personal relationship. What nurtures a relationship is love, an unconditional love. And what causes frustration in a relationship, is dependence, or expectations. As when we love some one, we start to have some expectations from our loved ones, may be just to reciprocate what we do unto them. But may be they do reciprocate, but may be their way is different from ours. But since we are expecting a certain pattern of behavior from them, we become frustrated, and that propagates the frustrations in the relationship.

So if I were to define an ideal state of relationship with my loved ones, I would say "If I am able to shower my unconditional love, do as much care as I can, without having my loved ones lose their freedom to live as they like and do what they want to do, do not expect anything from them in return, and still feel satisfied with that relationship, then that relationship will be ideal."

Now, if I were to advance to that ideal state in the practical world. Then an important characteristic that can be added to the relationship is "interdependence". Because the above definition of ideal state would lead the loved ones to become dependents, causing huge levels of expectations specially if they are adults and hence lead to frustrations in the relationship. Hence for a strong adult relationship, it is important that they are independent and the relationship can thrive on interdependence.

But interdependence is a "mutual" term. It occurs when two individuals share and depend on each other. When they share, they have a sense of responsibility towards the other, and when they depend, they have expectations from each other. Hmm....that means practical relationships have expectations inherent in them. But are expectations bad? May be not, as long as they do not lead to frustrations, the relationship can still survive and stay beautiful. So its better to thrive not towards the ideal relationship, which is practically not possible, but to thrive towards making it beautiful. Keep the expectations, work towards them, but try to avoid frustrations that might crop up.

More on this one to continue....