Unconditional: 100th Post!

"Imagine a perfect relationship. You are always intensely happy with your partner because you live with the perfect woman or man for you. How could you describe your life with this person?

Well, the way you relate with this person will be exactly the way you relate with a dog. A dog is a dog. It doesn't matter what you do, it's going to be a dog. You are not going to change a dog for a cat or a dog for a horse; it is what it is."
-Don Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love: A Toltec Wisdom Book

It reminds me of that Depeche Mode song that goes: "People are people so why should it be you and I should get along so awfully." Every relationship is a connection between two people each with their own desires and drives that create not only who they are, but how they interact with the world. Expecting them to change to fit your drives and desires cannot work and cannot lead to happiness.

I like this dog metaphor because it's true. If you treat every relationship like you would the loving bond (an important distinction since some people treat dogs quite horribly) between dog and master, then you'll be much happier.

A dog wants to be with you when it wants to be with you because it wants to be with you (or because you have food, but even then, it still wants to be there). If it doesn't want to be with you, it will squirm and struggle and run off to the other room; there's absolutely nothing you can do about this except to laugh and let it go. You can follow if you want but it won't expect you to and will probably be just as happy if you do as if you don't. If it isn't, it will come back.

The dog doesn't try to change you. It doesn't try to control you. It will let you know when it needs to go to the restroom or that it's hungry or thirsty, and if you don't respond it will work within its means to satisfy those needs without you. If it misbehaves and poos on the floor or eats out of the garbage or drinks from the toilet it's because you didn't do your part not because it's acting out against you.

Put a dog in a kennel or lock it outside, and it will whine. It will be sad. You are containing it's free spirit to roam and wander and randomly come up and lick your face and give you its love.

The key part of all this is the unconditionality of it. The dog is a dog no matter what, just like you are you no matter what, and you both have to be those things entirely for it to work and not expect the other to be anything else than what it is. The book goes on to ask "If you want a dog, then why you are getting a cat? If you want a cat, then why would you get a horse or a chicken?"

I look around at my relationships and the relationships of the people around me, and we're constantly criticizing each other and nit-picking. You don't fit my vision of what you should be. You don't talk loudly enough. You aren't responsible with money. You never communicated with me on the level I was trying to communicate. You aren't the pretty little tabby, you're a dirty, smelly mutt.

We can't change those things. All we can do is try to change how we react to them, which isn't to say we should give up, but getting angry or upset is an action in futility.

Basically what I've taken from this is the idea that I want to love unconditionally and love compassionately for the betterment my happiness and for yours. It is by no means a completely selfless or easy endeavor, I want to be happy as much as the next person, but in recognizing that, I'm also accepting that I'm not perfect and neither are the people around me. By accepting that fact as something I will never be able to change though I'm working that much closer to my goal.

The reason I post this here is because thanks to Power of Hope, I've learned that the best way to actualize an intention or goal is to verbalize it and share it with other people.

As we say at camp: Do you support me in this?