[The basic idea for this post emerged from a conversation with my good friend Chay on 13.05.2020, as we observed that, despite having a strong friendship, we rarely enjoyed each other’s company]
Why do I so often spend more time maintaining weak relationships than enjoying strong relationships?
Love + fear.
Strong relationships are built on love. Strong relationships are forged when we share our true selves by being honest, vulnerable and loving. Strong relationships will survive no matter what we do or how much time has passed, because our love for each other goes beyond what we do – it is about who we are. The love is unconditional. As a result, there is no urgency to enjoy, strengthen or maintain them right now.
Being loved by a few special friends feels really good – but I am hungry for more. However, because my actions have no effect on this unconditional love, I cannot find any new validation here. There is little I can do to ‘improve’ them. So what actions can I take to multiply this validation?
How can I get validation from a wider pool of people?
Weak relationships are built on fear. Weak relationships are forged when we do something that other people like: being popular, successful, entertaining, attractive. Being ‘liked’ feels good, so we seek to prevent these relationships from failing by repeating these desirable actions. Because these relationships are always based on performing certain actions, they are always close to failure, and therefore there is an urgency to maintain them. Any threat to the relationship causes fear: a fear that keeps us working, pleasing, performing and perfecting for other people.
Weak relationships survive because they are always close to fading or falling apart, needing urgent attention, creating lots of fear within us, thus causing us to spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy maintaining them.
Therefore, tragically, I will often prioritise weak/fragile relationships because they are more urgent and cause me to feel a higher level of anxiety, while the strong relationships get put on hold because I know that they are resilient. As a result, I spend the majority of my time fighting fires: maintaining weak relationships because they are closer to failure*.
This is rather tragic. But is there another way?
The alternative approach would be to reject the desire to be ‘widely liked’ and instead seek to be ‘deeply loved’. This would mean accepting that:
- My pursuit to be universally ‘liked’ is endless
- Being ‘loved’ by a few good people is more than enough
- The purpose of love is not to be multiplied, but to be enjoyed
- Eventually, I should seek to be satisfied simply by the love I have for my self
Instead of fighting fires, I could spend time enjoying deeper, more meaningful and honest connection with those who demand nothing of me: those that love me for who I am.
*Update, 24th Dec 2022: This idea is related to a mental model of motivation I’ve heard referred to as ‘neglect-based motivation’, whereby we are negatively motivated to avoid the consequences of things which get neglected, and our attention is therefore directed towards the ‘most-neglected’ thing in awareness. At the moment I think it is wise to replace any sources of negative motivation (aversion) with a source of positive motivation (attraction).
Update, 1st Jan 2023: Related to ‘Non-coercive motivation‘