Simple ideas, hard to live

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who was struggling with the end of a long and complicated relationship in his life. The relationship had taken many forms over the decade including romantic partner, best friend, roommate, co-dependent enabler, as well as polyamorous lover. This transition of their relationship was an especially hard one, because this time, it was trying to end all contact between him and the other person (with questionable rationale involved).

In the course of talking and chatting and texting, I ended up sending one simple text that I think manages to summarize a lot of what I think about people interacting with each other, as well as most forms of relationships:

“Be you. Do the things that you need to do. Ask kindly for the things you need from others. Enjoy what follows when they agree, accept when they don’t.”

It is trite. And I’m pretty sure its not wrong.

The simplicity of the first part certainly obfuscates the complexity and difficulty of its charge. Being you is hard, namely because before you can be yourself, you have to know yourself. This is undoubtedly a lifelong exercise of introspection, experimentation, self-awareness, and growth. But the more you know yourself, the more you can then see the distance between who you are, who you want to be, and the person you are actually being in the world. A fun and useful activity in this realm, is the Values Inventory & Integrity Report. (These are things I think are super valuable to poly relationships and will comment on more in the future) So often in interpersonal and romantic relationships, we often try to be someone we are not, with some real and problematic consequences. Relationships are ultimately between two actual people, not two projections of the selves they present to the world, so: be you.