I'm losing my trust for people. I just don't think you can expect a certain type of behavior from anyone, in any interaction. I don't know that true selfless committment exists. I'm not sure it does. Mostly, if someone doesn't get something out of a situation or relationship, they eventually will find a way to disentangle themselves from it, somehow. If they're there, they're getting something. They might not be getting the best they could get, and they might not be proportionately getting compared to what they give, but it is something.
Anyway, the point is that this lack of trust actually take s a lot of pressure off of me. I no longer have to be nice everywhere I go (not that I ever really was); I essentially no longer have to wrestle with the moral quandries of whether I've offended, or essentialized, or whether someone felt neglected, or worry about how sensitive people are, generally. I no longer have the burden of telling myself that I have been nice, when I haven't, or even when I've had bad thoughts that didn't play out in reality.
I've basically been a huge naif all of my life, and I've known it, objectively at least, and am now finally growing into something else. I've been so open to everyone and everything everywhere I went that I was never myself. I don't have to be nicer than I think is necessary in order to obtain reciprocating behavior that will allow me to obtain whatever it is I want. That is, I can be strategic if I want and not feel guilty about it. II can finally be honest with myself, and that allows me not to have to be so bloody honest with everyone else all the time, always giving them my inner vulnerabilities. I recognize that there will be conflict. I won't try to avoid conflict, at least not at the behest of everything else. It has left me lazy and benign, and totally uninvested in myself.
i think that absolutely selfless commitment does exist--most often in love that parents have for their children, though you can find it in other relationships as well. another thing is, i think it's totally ok if relationships are based on some sort of selfish reciprocity, because it's possible for all sides of such a relationship to be made better off by it. Personal relationships are not zero-sum games; they can create value. But, all parties must be aware of what is going on (although the knowledge need not be verbalized), and each person involved has to know themselves (i.e. what their own best interest is) very well. Bad relationships, i.e. those in which at least one party is made worse off than they would have been on their own, are usually impossible without some sort of delusion (which very often is the delusion of a completely selfless commitment).
ReplyDeleteVery well said. I'm not sure I could add much, except to say that I agree, we should get away from the binary idea that either we're interested in ourselves or in others, and there can be no synergy, or value created as you say.
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