Managing your relationships

Much of the anxiety I experience comes through my relationships. Isn't it reasonable to expect some understanding from other people?

When you live in this world, there are various complex interactions happening. As your field-of-play increases, complexity of interaction also increases. If you are just sitting in a cubicle, working on your computer with only one other person, you need only a little understanding; but if you are managing a thousand people, you need good understanding of everybody.
You wont be able to manage if you want all these people to understand you. You need to understand the limitations and capabilities of these thousand people and do what you can; only then will you have the power to move the situation the way you want it to go.

If you are waiting for these thousand people to understand you and act, it is a pipe dream; it won't happen.

The closer the relationship, the more effort you need to make to understand them. Somebody becomes closer and dearer to you only as you understand them better. If they understand you, they enjoy the closeness of the relationship.

If you understand them better, then you enjoy the closeness. If you are expecting the other to comply with you all the time while you don't understand limitations, possibilities, needs and capabilities of that person, then conflict happens; it is a given. Unfortunately, the closest relationships have more conflict going on than between enemies.

In your relationships, you have fought many more battles than this and are still fighting, isn't it so? This is because your line of understanding and theirs is different. If you cross this Line of Control, they get mad. If they cross it, you get mad. If you move your understanding beyond theirs, their understanding also becomes a part of yours. You'll be able to embrace their limitations and capabilities.

In everyone, there are positive and negative aspects. If you embrace all this in your understanding, you can make the relationship the way you want it. If you leave it to their understanding, it will become accidental. If they are magnanimous, things will happen well for you; if not, the relationship will break up.

Do you want to be the one who decides what happens to your life? Whether they are intimate relationships, professional, political, global or whatever, don't you want to be the person who decides what happens in your life? If you do, include everything and everybody into your understanding. Enhance your understanding to a point that you can look beyond people's madness also. There are wonderful people around you, but once in a while they like to go crazy for a few minutes. If you don't understand that, you will lose them. If you do, then you know how to handle them. Life is not always linear; you have to do many things to keep it going. If you forsake your understanding, your capability will be lost. Whether it is a question of personal relationships or professional management, you need understanding; otherwise, you will not have fruitful relationships.

The way you are right now, the very quality of your life is decided by the type of relationships you hold. Make the effort to understand people around you.