Love or Dependence?

When do we really know if we are still in love or has become just dependent to a partner we have lived with?

I am neither a psychologist nor a love guru. Yet,  I stood there at a corner, on a gloomy afternoon,  in front of a woman whose eyes were still wet from tears, inaudibly asking for some answer.  

She's a woman of faith, a sweet mom to two kids, a faithful wife to an infidel husband, a very dear friend of mine. We didn't quite see each other for a while, due to conflict in our schedule, but we have a had a lot of time to talk our hearts out in the past. I felt more obliged to answer her last question, after she intimated to me while I have my lunch, that she just got confused.

I am to be blamed for her confusion, but I encouraged her that such state of confusion, is good as she is starting to think, to question, to challenge her beliefs and to assess her feelings. It's a moment so critical for her to understand her life situation and be in control again, by rewriting her life-script and not just acting based on someone's script. I feel for her, and I can't just let go of our conversation without a word.

Breaking down in tears, signals to me that she's broken and beaten, not physically but emotionally. It is her faith in the Church she's clinging into. My point of view is rather eclectic, from an empowering feminist stand point for her to stand strong and decide to separate from the cause of her anxiety - her husband, to a rather practical advise of coming into terms of letting go of her anxiety over the financial difficulty it would cost her and her children should he separate from him, and holding on to the littlest love she still has for him.

I sense she's not happy, not happy at all, although she would throw smiles at me when I would divert our chat to jokes. I could not insist what I think is right, for only her can determine her direction. She agreed though, when I told that she has many options and she must choose from them, and make her decision. She told me that I sounded like the Monsignor she confided when I told her that she could cling on love no matter how little that is left. 

The parable of Mustard seed was running in my head at that time. I was thinking that love is as powerful as faith that can move mountains, and that God is love. Then she asked, like a child so innocent, but yearning for an answer. She asked softly: "When do you know if it is still love and not dependence?" 

I said I don't know, but knowing how our conversation went at lunchtime, and how her teary eyes mirror what's in her heart, I felt obliged to grope for a helpful answer. I could only think of what St. Paul taught about love: "Love is patient, love is kind... it rejoices in the truth, it does not wrong... love never ends."  I could not in verbatime recall what St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, to wit:

“Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrong doing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes in all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (I Corinthians 13:4-8, New Revised Standard)”

Yet, i guess what I said sufficed to answer her question. That as love for St. Paul in his teaching is universal to apply in any relationship where people are tucked by their ideation of "love". I asked, "is it love if you are becoming impatient to the person you think you love, and to the situation you are within?" We are not patient when we are anxious.  I furthered, "if love is kind, then you will have to be kind to the other person, and he is kind to you, you to yourself. Any abuse could make you angry, and afterwards you will turn that anger to yourself, and to others, or even to your children."

I continued, "any form of abuse is wrong, how then you allow for something wrong to go on?" Then I said, "love rejoices in the truth, and the truth is you are problematic, you are anxious, because things are wrong, which you didn't expect". The last thought I could say to encourage her, is that "love endures, if you want to hold on to because you still have the littlest love for him, then go on and let it flourish as you bear with what love brings".

Honestly, I told her that she should check on what she feels and what she thinks. She's like any woman, vulnerable to how a man could play with power and control, with his resources, with his money or brute force. Her case is just different, her felt abuse is emotional and psychological, nothing physical. She's contradiction of the man she loved or loves, who does not remain faithful to his wife nor his religious belief (should he still have). As such, she has anchored her life to person who has the resources, she and her children would definitely need to survive.

It is not love that binds two people if they are co-dependent on each other. That has to be other things, material things, security, comfort, privileges and perks, but never love. Love is freely given and respects freedom from two independent individuals who developed interdependence. The couple being interdependent, generously shares their time, is sensitive of each others feelings and emotions and resolves issues to keep their relationship. There's equality and sharing of responsibilities as each empowers another. There is understanding of their weaknesses, and forgiveness is brought by that understanding. As there is commitment, there is a sense of responsibility to remain faithful and so love endures.

I cannot fathom love, no one can. St. Paul's writings only illuminates that great mystery in love. We only understand it, when we love, but never could we speak about it when we don't have even a little of it in our hearts. Has my friend grown overly dependent on her husband? I could answer that, but she can best answer it for herself. Is it love or dependence?  I know she knows.

Centering our Life

The center of our life should redirect us to appreciate our self and others, because that drives us to love who we are, who we care about and what we do. If we find our self alienated in a relationship or in any situation, the center doesn't hold balance to keep us in desirable motion. We need to find our self back and check our footing based on our personal life's center.
 

Naturally, our bodies operate through the command of the central nervous system. Every cell in our body has a center called nuclei, and every element of matter consists of central atoms. Physically, everything on the ground is pulled by a central force called gravity. The earth and all other planets in the solar system revolve around the sun due to the force coming from the center of that star. Galaxies have centers that hold everything together in the vastness of space where they hang. Socially, there are centers in which human activities flourish.

There are material evidences to the abstract concept of center applied to life, as I have described. That center seems to provide meaning, direction and substance to our thoughts, beliefs, words, feelings and actions.  Consider, kilometer zero. In geographical terms, it is a point of origin from which the distance and location of another point is measured. It's valued as zero. Thus, it is nothing numerically, yet it is so valuable in knowing where we are and finding where we want to go. The seemingly unnoticed center is conduit to who we really are.

Our centers, in a push and pull function, are vital to our life’s motions. Our psyche can be best understood through this center. Our identity also operates from the power of this center. The center is at the core and its power is transferred and projected as an energy that is perceivable and which could affect us and others we socially deal with. But what could this power in our psyche’s core be?

Values: our standards that guide our life, the worth we place on objects and subjects within and around us, and the virtue we hope to share with others we have to live with. These motivate us to define our life course, to behave in ways we do, to make important decisions, to choose words that we utter, to be mindful of others, and to be cognizant and responsible with our thoughts and actions. They are abstract concepts that only matter when we consider them to have worth.

Our aspirations, our dreams and our ambitions are mere projections of what we value in life. Our goals are but expressions of what lies in our psyche’s core. Our attitude towards others and towards situations in our life is also determined by our values. Our judgment of what we can perceive also find grounds on our held values. While our responses to life problems could be situational, our values act as gatekeepers in our decisions. Strongly held values become instinctive, while loosely held values don’t gain influence in human actions.

There are those who think dichotomously that values could be negative or positive, but it is a spectrum. There is a neutral value, neither nor. The degree varies. The mathematical representations of positive and negative values in the Cartesian plane have absolute representations in the calculations.

What is valuable in life ought to be positive. With that, life’s motion is in a constant positive spectrum. This is if we are after a good life. Values must be shared, if not we will be finding ourselves in difficult situations, going after different directions, and getting lost somewhere.  

When we value our self positively, we are able to love our self. When we value others equally as we do to our self, we are able to love them as we would with our own life. When we value life and value excellence, we strive to be the best of who we can be and be the best in what we can do. Then, we are esteemed by our actions. When we value collegiality and quality, we work with others productively and proactively to yield gains. Then we appreciate our efforts and so esteem our self. 

Values that we hold must be positive. We ought to value beauty and not vanity. We ought to value friendship over benefits. We ought to value time over idleness. We ought to value people over material things. We ought to value wealth and not money. We ought to value quality and not mere quantity. We ought to value character over uniqueness. We ought to value our voice over words.  We ought to value justice over fairness. We ought to value life, and in that we ought to value what is excellent and virtuous. 

As we keep our values intact, we flourish as an individual and we find our self in harmony with others. But, when we are alienated, we are at lost as we do not know our self. The lost of our self-worth could lead us to love our self less and care less for others, too. As we lose our values, we lose our self, so we must go back and find our center -- that of what we hold dear the most.   

Should we center our life on someone? Not at any person in this world is worth to become the center of our life.  Instead, we should set our eyes on far greater things above, for everything in this world is fleeting in time.

Study Hard or Study Easy?

 Photo source: http://hwstheherald.com/wordpress/2011/05/06/the-where-why-and-how-of-studying/

Studying in college is a lot different from studying in high school. Freshmen students find it more difficult to survive their first year of college as they are in a period of transition and adjustment. Breaking through this transition period requires a student to study well in order to succeed and achieve higher performance. Studying well doesn’t have to be hard, it has to be easy.

Study Hard

Students who study hard take longer time in reviewing, in reading texts, and in working on their assignments and projects. They stay late at night, and they don’t find enough time to complete their school requirement. Studying hard means exerting much effort, yet the quality of their output is still the same. 

Students who fail in their academics would also say that they studied hard, but then their performance still show otherwise. Studying hard is understood to be straining the body, stressing the mind to think and stretching the available time.  In some cases, they need to do over their assignments because they were just rushing to do it. 

Those who study hard, do a lot of things which are not even part of their priorities. They spend so much time on less important things and so they find difficulty in completing their requirement. Those who study hard are too preoccupied of other things so they take a hard time in meeting their academic expectations. 

On the other hand, they have no expectations at all. Without a set goal and a set of priorities, they do so many things that are not even necessary for them to do well in their academics. They do not have the drive to achieve because they just do not have goal before them. Their actions are mere dependent on what is taking place at the moment. 

Study Easy

Students who achieve and who succeed in college are often found by others to be doing easy on everything. They seem to find the subjects easy to understand, and they could comply with the requirement with less problems. They know what to do and they know what they want in their status as students. They study with ease. For their teachers, they are a lot easier to handle. They study well.

Students who study easy have clear expectations or goals that they want to meet. They know their priorities in life, and their academics is on top of their priorities. They set the things beforehand, like what they have to do for the day, for the week, for the term. They have a clear end in mind. They strive to achieve that end over time. With their priorities in mind, they know how to use the time they have without even waiting for the deadline.

Students who study easy are active learners. They take down notes. They listen attentively. They ask questions for clarifications. They openly share their ideas and they are humble to accept correction. They use their spare time to review their lessons and they even do advance readings of the topics they need study in a course. Thus, when there are questions during recitations, they could easily respond.  Because they are active learners, they are able to fathom knowledge and to judge them critically. While being critical, they are also open to communication and they willingly share their ideas to others.

Students who study easy have strategies to overcome their learning difficulties or which are suited to their learning preferences. They read voluminous texts with ease, because they know how to preview the material and they have trained their eyes to read rapidly without losing comprehension of the text. They understand numerical problems because they know the basic operation at work. They seek help when they needed it. They use graphic organizers, highlight ideas, paraphrase key concepts, summarize and synthesize. They improve their memory skills through various techniques. They prepare for exams with their personal reviewers.

Students who study easy are engaged in the learning process. They are immersed in the learning experience with high motivation that comes from within them. They take learning with a positive attitude and strong interest, even if their teacher or the classroom climate is not that interesting. As they are engaged into learning, they take steps to learn on their own and to monitor their own learning performance. They are self-regulated learners.  

How do you want to Study?

To succeed in college, one does not need to study hard, one simply has to study with ease. EASE is setting Expectations, Actively learning, using Strategies, and fully Engaging in the learning experience. That is taking every learning experience as an opportunity to improve one’s self and to achieve one’s goal. Studying easy should lead to student’s success without doing things hard and having difficulty to overcome academic challenges.