• A relationship is a matter of two people interacting with each other – say, husband and wife.
• How can things go wrong – it is when you behave badly with each other, or you say things that your wife doesn’t like?
• Then what happens – she gets angry? She has three options: stay quite so that things don’t flare-up; fight back; or go into long-term silence with the husband – a way of expressing anger.
• When antagonism sets in your mind, two things happen: silence with each other, and loss of touch.
• This is the outcome of a single confrontation. A seed of discontent is sewn.
• This scenario gets repeated thousands of times in the course of life, with each confrontation having the possibility of generating anger.
• This anger gets accumulated over repeated confrontations of bad behavior – the mental tape gets filled up with anger, and the relationship starts to move towards breakdown.
• So, who is responsible – both of you.
• Why do you say bad things – it is because of the person you are?
• What makes you the person that you are – it’s your inner core – your personality?
• What makes your personality – many diverse factors?
• What are some of those behavioral factors: your self-righteous stance, your aggressiveness, your ego, your anger, and so on.
• How do you improve the harmony of your relationship – by amending your personality?
• How do you change your personality – by studying the influence of the factors that make up your personality profile – and bringing requisite changes?
• Can one’s inherent personality be amended – certainly yes – at least to the extent of maintaining a happy relationship?

The Personality Influence

Important personality factors that influence your behavior to spoil your relationship are: self-righteousness, ego, aggressiveness, anger, expectations, unfulfillment, etc. The influence of these factors is reflected in the things you do, such as:

• In your daily routine interactions, you may always be thinking that it is not your fault; it is your partner’s fault.
• You think you are always right, she is wrong.
• You think you know all – and what you know is the only right.
• You think that she doesn’t know anything – or she doesn’t know as much as you do.
• You may think that she is not intelligent and her opinions are not sound.
• Your have a very arrogant, and prideful ego that controls your actions. Your ego doesn’t let you compromise.
• You do not accept the fact that everybody is different, and that your spouse can have a difference of opinion – and she has a right to her opinions.
• You have no control over your anger – you hoard anger about the other – you are an angry person.
• Your are pushy and aggressive – it’s your way or no way.
• Your aggressive nature, combined with your arrogance, pride, and anger, wants to prove that the other is wrong – and want to teach the other a lesson of life.
• You fail to understand that the other person is as much a person as you are – with different likes and dislikes – and that the others have as much right to be the person they are as you have.
• You rarely manifest your true feelings of love for the other.
• You are self-centered most of the time – thinking about your own feelings and wishes rather than that of your spouse.
• Your unreasonable and untenable expectations of the other must have created anger and frustration.
• Perhaps, you are emotionally unfulfilled, and that makes you unhappy in a relationship.
• You may have a negative disposition and mindset that can cause distance between you and your spouse.
• You may have insulted her or tried to put her down in front of others.

What You Must Understand

• You must understand that your spouse is as much a person as you are.
• She may have different likes and dislikes – different way of thinking – and she has a right to be what she is – just as much as you have a right to be what you are.
• You are not the only one that knows the best or is always right – others are as equally intelligent, or even more, as you are.
• You must respect her total existence as much as you respect your own.
• You must never put her down in front of others.
• You must not impose your aggressiveness and your will onto her, especially if it goes against her own thinking.
• There is no room for arrogance – stubbornness – ego – in a good relationship.
• You must control your anger at all times.
• You must not impose your expectations onto her, especially if they are unreasonable and they go against her wishes. Remember the “musts” of a good relationship:
  -        Equality
  -        Respect for each other
  -        Humble surrenders
  -        Request, not demand
  -        Discuss, not argue
  -        Respect for each others opinion
  -       A show of love – genuine love.

Mending Your Ailing Relationship

• The first step: If the relationship has gone so bad that you are neither communicating with each other as happily as you used to, nor touching or holding each other – then these two things you have to bring back first: the touch and the breaking of silence.
• Find an appropriate moment or opportunity – hold your partner – say that you want to talk to her.
• Holding and humbling your ego tightly under your control – say sorry – that you have been negligent of her feelings. Show as if it is your fault, rather than hers.
• This you have to say to start the process, irrespective of whether it was your fault or not. You do want to mend your relationship – don’t you? Watch it! Your ego is not going to let you do that – take control of your ego.
• Next, you ask your partner as to what is bothering her or what has hurt her feelings? Start with her list first – don’t bring in your list yet.
• Deal with one item at a time. Don’t create a traffic jam by bringing in too many things at the same time.
• Listen to her patiently. Be sensitive to her feelings. Don’t blame her for anything, even when you think it was her fault – at least not yet, until you have created a palatable level of communication.
• Discuss, don’t argue. Be humble and respectful.
• Keep all of your own personality traits under control.
• Have the courage to accept your fault.
• Say sorry if you need to.
• Now you can bring in your own list of concerns. Slowly, carefully, and without putting the blame on her, start with the most obvious concern. Move to the other concerns one by one and clarify as many causes of discontent as possible.
• Agree to forgive and forget.
• Close the discussion with affectionate partings. 

You have to bring requisite changes to your personality to complete the process of healing and enhancing your relationship harmony.

(Excerpted from: “Silent Separations” – Amazon.com)

Lamentations about life and living is a common phenomenon. Some of the common complaints that I hear are: I am sick of this world; If I get a chance, I will set this world right; I don’t trust anybody; I am tense all the time; My blood pressure is always high; I find myself totally unfulfilled and unhappy; People take advantage of me; Why do I get all the troubles; and so on.

If you are one of those complainers – congratulations – you are a perfect case for “SIHS: Self-Inflicted-Hyper-Sensitivity” syndrome – voila – I just coined a new term. Why do we feel miserable – why do we lament, and what to do about it? Unfortunately, we are all born with this disease – it’s in our genes – courtesy of evolution or God, whatever your preference. But, the problem is that not only does it make your own life miserable, it also makes everyone else around you miserable. So, sooner you get out it and live-it-up, the better it is for you and your relationships.

The reason for all this is your personality – the person you are. You have a particular personality profile, through which you think and behave. Your profile is a by-product of a number of factors that influence your being and make you the person you are. The problem is inside you – therefore, it is all yours. You create problems through your thinking – but the good new is that you can solve all problems also, if you decide to. There are four major factors that profoundly influence you thinking: self-righteousness, ego, anger, and aggressiveness.

Lets first debate the issue of “thinking”. We are what we think and what we think is because of what we are – it’s a circular relationship. With regard to your unhappiness, there are two ways you can be miserable: 

• The first one is by way of your own thinking – you can mentally create an inner anger and fight a war that is actually not there, and this can keep you continuously hyped-up in that state of inner unhappiness.
• Or, you can be miserable by actual external interventions – people around you aggravate you and that makes you miserable. 

In both cases, I am afraid, the fault lies with you. If it is your own mental imagery and thinking that creates a state of miserable ness, then nobody is to blame but you. Because miserable ness is not a physical entity – it is a state of mind only. On the other hand, if the external stimulus creates aggravation for you – it’s still your fault, because it is you and your mind that accepts it and let it bother you. Nobody can get inside your mind unless you let them. Think of stress, for example – stress is also not a physical entity, it is a mental concoction. Stress is not something that is waiting around the corner to grab you when you pass by – you take on stress through your own thinking and mental imagery.  Same goes for happiness – it’s also a state of mind. So, as you can see – it all comes down to your own thinking – you are what you think. And if you have other bad characteristics of personality also, your mode of thinking can steer your life in wrong directions. Now, let me elaborate on the four characteristics appended above: 

The first two factors are: “self-righteousness”, and “ego”. The first one makes me think that what I know is the ultimate right – that I know al, and the second one supports my vanity and prideful arrogance. Now just imagine how difficult our relationship interaction can be when everyone thinks that. This is the first source of the hurt of our heart. 

The next two factors that give us pain are: “anger”, and “aggressiveness”. Anger is our # 1 enemy. A lot of us carry a heavy, but unwanted, load of accumulated anger inside us – and, most of the time we don’t even know that we have it and why? Anger gives us a continuous mindset of animosity towards everything. And on top of it, if you are aggressive by nature, you are a prime target for miserable ness.  With aggressive nature, you are always wanting to dominate the scene and want everyone to follow and do what you think is right. Your own aggressiveness keeps you hyped-up in a state of continuous stress. It also keeps your blood pressure high at all times. 

 What is the solution? Change your thinking. How? Through dialogue with your self. The problem is inside you – you are the one who creates it through your thinking – you are the one who has to alleviate it. 

What does “dialogue with the self” mean? It means talking to your self – introspective analysis. My preferred way is to go for long walks all alone, and sort out things. But, I also use the “analytical analysis technique” with this – which means that my discussions with my self must produce decisive results in the final analysis. This technique is important, because otherwise most people just talk and think, but remain buried under continuous moans and groans, rather than coming out with a decisive answer. 

How and what do you discuss with yourself? Let us take the example of the four factors: self-righteousness, ego, anger, and aggressiveness – consider the following: 

§       You are not the only smart Alex born on this planet – there are others who may know more than you. So, if you think that you are always right – why should others tolerate you? Would you tolerate a person who always behaves with you as if he is the only one who is right?

§       If you are aggressive, or you have anger, or you have a big ego – why should anybody associate with you – or put it another way – would you associate with a person who has a big ego problem, or who is too pushy?

When you create a self-dialogue on these lines – you will see reality as reality is, not as you want it to be. By continuously being in touch with your psyche, you will create a mindset that will lessen the hurt of your heart.

 I am like a rose tree,
You are the rose on that tree.
Without you – the Rose,
I am not a Rose tree,
I am just a tree,
With branches full of leaves and thorns.
You make me the Rose tree,
You are the genesis of my existence. 

Subhash Puri
(Excerpted from my book: Silent Separations:
Broken Hearts in Unbroken Relationships – Amazon.com)

“ You are retired when you control the time”.

Funny! I never knew what it means to control the time – because, all my life I have been controlled by time. 

I was asked to be there at 4.00 pm for a meeting – I was to reach the airport at 6.00 am – I was supposed to be going for a morning walk at 7.00 am – I was to eat at a certain time – My wife wanted me to go right away to get something from the store – I was asked to prepare my lecture exactly for 20 minutes – I had to be at a party by 8.00 pm – and so – and so on.

Time controlled my life completely. Time pushed me around the way it suited him. I was a slave to time.

Slave no more – I am the boss now – I control the time – because, I am “retired”.

I decide when to go for a morning walk – 5.00 am, or 6.00 am, or 11.00 am – or not to go at all. I decide what time I will get up. I decide what meeting to be called at what time – time of my choosing. I decide how much time to spend each day on writing my new book. The book or the time has no pressure on me – they don’t control me – I control them. I decide what to eat or what time to sleep.

Isn’t that fantastic? People still ask me – and among them are retirees also – what time do you go for a walk in the morning – and, I say: whatever time I feel like. These people are also retirees, but they are still slave to time. They would argue with me – that, it is good to be disciplined and regimented. But, that’s exactly what gives them stress. The problem is that they are so used to time controlling them, that they have forgotten how to control time – in fact, they feel uncomfortable when time is not controlling them.

Another point of interest! Most of my retired friends ask me the question: how do you pass your time – aren’t you bored? I say – no – I am not bored, because we are three very close friends who are always together – working – eating – sleeping – discussing – going out – going for a walk. And indeed the next obvious question was: who are those three friends – and my answer: “I” – “Me” – and “Myself”. We are so happy together – we talk to each other – we discuss things – we have a ball all the time.

This is a big problem with lots of people – they don’t know their “self” – they don’t know how to talk to their self – because, they are outward-directed. That is to say, they know others – they can see the faults of others – but, they do not know their own self – they can’t see their own faults. They don’t know how to talk to themselves. Hence, they are bored.

For all its worth – enjoy your retirement – no matter what you do or what interests you have. The remainder part of your life has to be led, whether you lead it happily or being miserable. Talk to your self – that is the best friend you have. The best realization in the world is the realization of the self. Once you have a rapport with your self – you have won the world.

            The greatest realization of human life lies in knowing the “self”. The day you achieve this realization, you will be the master of your life – otherwise, you will always be controlled by your emotions – by your ego – by your personality – and you will be constantly fighting a war that doesn’t exist or is unwarranted.

            You just get one trip through life – it’s your decision how you want that trip to be – being happy or fighting. It’s your body – your mind – your life – you are the one who creates all problems – you are the one who has the power to solve all problems.

            You are it – you are the center – you are the universe – everything begins from you and ends on you. And, what a pity it would be if you don’t know the self – who you are – how do you behave – why do you behave the way you are.

            No correction can be made to the self unless you know what is the self – what the self does – and what corrections are needed.

            Most people either don’t know their self or they pretend they don’t know – for that would lead to admission of their deficiencies – and that is one thing that is a no-no for their ego.

            Just look at how much we know about others against how much we know about our selves – and you will totally surprised. You know Robert is: aggressive, cunning, selfish – and so on. You know Linda is arrogant, prideful, uncompassionate – and so on.

            But, who are you – what are you? Do you know it? Are you ready to admit?

            Change can only be brought in if you know what you are and what you must become – that is assuming that you do desire to bring change in your self for maintaining better relationships.

            It’s not difficult to bring in changes, the moment you know your self. These are achieved through a continuous dialogue with the self.

            I am lucky – we are three together– all the time – “I – Me – Myself” – we compliment each other – we discuss things together – we can easily change things.

            There is another spin-off benefit of knowing your self. Normally, your relationship is not totally harmonized – and it is because there still is a big distance between you two. You still think the other “other” – not your own. And this also happens because you do not know your self. The moment you know your self, you will find that the other is almost the same as you – just a mirror image. Suddenly, the distance between you two will decrease – and your togetherness will improve.

            Knowing your self is almost as close to as knowing God. Please God; forgive me – for I don’t know what I do.

“ Happiness is a state of well-being and contentment”.

A state of well-being means that: you are at peace with yourself as well as with others – that there is no conflict, internal or external.

A state of contentment is when your endless stream of desires doesn’t override your contentment threshold.

So then, let’s try to unravel the mysteries of happiness through an examination of these two entities: well-being and contentment. We shall examine the following two issues:

§       What makes you unhappy, so that you can correct it?

§       What is contentment, and how can you achieve it?

You must understand that in both of these, you are the person – you are the reason – you are the cause – you are the result.

§       Your own personality makes you unhappy.

§       Your endless stream of desires doesn’t let you achieve contentment.

Over and above that, there is one more thing you have to bring under control – that stands in your way to achieving happiness – and that is the commander-in-chief – your “ego”.

This is because you have to come to terms with yourself to accept whether you are happy or not. Normally, your ego pride – false pride, of course – doesn’t let you accept that you are unhappy. Most often, you think that you are happy – it’s the other that is not happy. So, you go along looking at other faces and make a judgment that the other person is unhappy. Not only that, you also think that your judgment is absolutely right. And you want to tell the other that he/she should be happy – and you are ready and armed to help him/her to achieve happiness. You begin to act as the messiah at that time. If I ask you – are you happy yourself – you would jump to the occasion and say – of course, I am happy – me unhappy – not possible. You would never admit or your ego will never let you admit – it connotes defeat for the ego – and that is a no-no for the ego.

Personality
 

So, what makes you unhappy? It’s your own personality. Unhappiness is not a virus out there to attack you. It’s all inside you. There are two ways you can become unhappy: through your own thinking, and through interactions with others.

Your own thinking can keep you continuously in a state of unhappiness. You may not be content with what you have, and you can be sore about it, making you unhappy. You may not like other people, and you may be fighting imaginary wars – wars that actually don’t exist – and keep you hyped up and unhappy.

Your interactions with others can make you unhappy, because of your own personality. Here are a few personality related scenarios:

§       You think you are always right, and you know the ultimate best. So, you want others to listen to you – and when they don’t, you become angry and unhappy.

§       You may have a very large ego – you are arrogant, prideful, and uncooperative – people don’t like you – nor do they want to listen to you – that makes you unhappy.

§       You are too aggressive – and people cannot tolerate that.

§       You don’t accept the fact that everyone is different – have different likes and dislikes – have different opinions – and you keep pushing others to your way of thinking – and when others don’t listen to you, you get angry.

§       You fail to accept that each person is a person he/she is, and has a right to be what he or she wants to be.

§       You expect too much from other – and when they do not fulfill your untenable expectations, you become angry.

It all comes down to your personality. You have to come to terms with yourself – to understand that every person is different and has a right to be what he wants to be. To do so and to achieve happiness, by being at peace with yourself as well as others, you need to change your attitude and behavior – your personality.

Here is something for you to do. Don’t go around judging the state of happiness of others – because, each person is different – has different framework of what makes him happy.

Contentment
 

Contentment comes through fulfillment of desires. But, the stream of desires is unending. When one desire is fulfilled, the other is already waiting in line to be fulfilled. In fact, at any one point in time, there are always several desires waiting to be fulfilled. And, this process has no end. And therefore, you never achieve contentment. So, what’s the solution – how do you achieve contentment? Does that mean that you should not have desires? No, that is not the case. Desires are an essential part of happy living. If you have no desires, life will be absolutely boring. What you need to have is an absolute control over your desires. Desires are created by you – and they can be controlled also – and only you can do it. 
 

Happiness is not a happening – it’s a realization – it’s a state of mind – something inside you that can be realized by you and you alone. Happiness is not something that happens or doesn’t happen – it’s there all the time. You just have to know now to realize it. What is important is not the moment-by-moment, or task-by-task happiness, but the total continuous natural-state-of-mind-happiness that is of value. Being and having are two different things. Having cannot accentuate being, but being can overrule having. Life based on having rather than being is virtually meaningless – at least on the higher levels of intellectual and spiritual platforms – and that is the platform of happiness. You get only one trip through life – you can lead it happily or unhappily – you can enjoy it or waste it – the choice is exclusively yours and yours alone to make.

            So what are you waiting for – grab hold of life – enjoy the trip – and leave some memorable footprints. Greet each day with a smile – the day will greet you back in the same way. The world is nothing but a mirror image of your own thinking – it’s happy if you are happy – it’s miserable if you are miserable.  

Science gave me the answer – that there is a 50 – 50 chance of having a boy or a girl. I found that statement ridiculous on two counts. Firstly, 50 – 50 doesn’t make any sense, because anything or everything can be 50 – 50 – that is, either it would happen or it would not happen – and there is nothing else to it.

Secondly and more importantly, I always believed that nature is perfect – nature has calculated designs for everything. That, nature cannot leave something undecided – especially, a matter as important as that.

Thus, began a life long journey – a desire to do research on this question – a desire to unravel this mystery. My modus operandi was simply researching through observations – and I must have made hundreds and thousands of observations.

What was my finding?

 “That, the sex of the baby is determined by the characteristic of Aggressiveness”

“If the woman is more aggressive than the man – it will be a boy. But, if the man is more aggressive than the women, it will be a girl.

Thus, a constantly aggressive man will produce baby girls, and a constantly aggressive woman will produce baby boys.

Then what about those couples who have both – boys as well as girls. I spent a considerable amount of time to understand this aspect of the theory, but I was able to figure out this rather quickly. I found the following things:

• That, aggressiveness can go up and down – that is, a person can go into dormant state and become temporarily less aggressive, even when he is, in fact, highly aggressive.
• That, the state of authority has an impact on aggressiveness. 

Consider the situation where an ordinary and not so rich or authoritative woman is marrying a man who has lot of authority or is financially very well off. The woman may be more aggressive than the man, but her current situation is such that she has no controls or clout and, therefore, her aggressiveness can be in a dormant state. The man, then, becomes comparatively more aggressive, even when he actually is less aggressive than the woman. So, if they have a baby at this juncture, they would end up having a girl. But, this will change soon, because the woman, being inherently more aggressive, would soon take control of things – and you would then find that they get boys after their first girl.

So, as the aggressiveness state oscillates, the sex of the child also oscillates, with whosoever is in a dominant state at that point of time.

Aggressiveness is also affected by health related situations, or emotional traumas, or other incidences that impact emotions. When that happens, an aggressive person can go into dormant state of aggressiveness, and that will affect the sex of the unborn.

For over three decades, I studied both categories of people: ones who were expecting a baby, and the others who already had the babies. And my judgment was absolutely on target for each case that I analyzed.

All this, indeed, requires a very significant capability to judge a person’s level of aggressiveness. Fortunately, I was able to master the art of judging people rather quickly.

My analysis tended to be so precise that people were flabbergasted by my exactness.

You can verify my theory by your own observations – though, you need to be capable of sensing the aggressiveness of the couple. You can study your friends – see the level of their aggressiveness and then see what the sexes of their children are.

You can study many historical perspective to verify the theory. Let me give you some examples.

Examine King Henry the 8^th. He was very aggressive – and, therefore, he would only have baby girls. He married again and again, but he didn’t get a woman more aggressive than himself.

Take the case of Queen Elizabeth the 2^nd. She was in authority – having just captured the throne, at the time if her marriage. So, their first child – Prince Charles – was a boy. But being reasonably aggressive, as a military officer, Prince Philips captures the aggressive role, assumes better controls, and the next child – Princess Ann – was a girl. After that, Prince Philips again had to assume a bit of a subservient role the rest of his life, and Queen Elizabeth’s continued aggressiveness brought more boys.

Let us follow with Prince Charles and Dianna Princess. You might think that Diana is less aggressive than Charles – that is not true. This is where, you have to have an astute sixth sense to judge aggressiveness. With Diana being more aggressive, there were surely boys to follow.

The last question that was on my list for research was the most intractable question. I still don’t have the answer to that. But, I would like to give you my own judgment answer about it.

The issue is like this: how does aggressiveness actually operate inside a woman’s body – because, after all, it is woman who has to carry and deliver the baby. The man role is finished once he contributes his sperms. Then, how does the woman’s body decide about the sex of the child?

My guess is that, in the final analysis, it is really the woman who decided who is aggressive and what should be the sex of the baby.

If the woman aggressively wants more of her own kinds – that is, girls – she would produce chemicals in her body that would kill or obstruct the Y-chromosomes, and her secretions would help the X-chromosomes to move faster and better to reach the final destination to the egg.

If, on the other hand, she prefers more men than girls, she would secret chemicals that would help Y-chromosomes, and hinder the X-chromosomes.

Since my research was more on a personal and observational threshold, I was hesitant to report my findings, irrespective the fact that my analysis always turned out to be 100% right. Also, I must say that I am not a Biologist – nor it is a subject that I am directly educated in – it’s just that this question always intrigued me, and I wanted to study it, in whatever way I could.

So, I was always looking for a scientist who is doing formal research into the matter, and see how his research tallies with mine. And luckily, one day I found a university professor, who reported her findings and who is deeply involved in studying the problem, rather more formally.

I touched base with her, and it turned out that my informal research completely matches her formal research and our findings are totally in agreement.

Enjoy this article for all its worth.

• A relationship is a matter of two people interacting with each other – say, husband and wife.
• How can things go wrong – it is when you behave badly with each other, or you say things that your wife doesn’t like?
• Then what happens – she gets angry? She has three options: stay quite so that things don’t flare-up; fight back; or go into long-term silence with the husband – a way of expressing anger.
• When antagonism sets in your mind, two things happen: silence with each other, and loss of touch.
• This is the outcome of a single confrontation. A seed of discontent is sewn.
• This scenario gets repeated thousands of times in the course of life, with each confrontation having the possibility of generating anger.
• This anger gets accumulated over repeated confrontations of bad behavior – the mental tape gets filled up with anger, and the relationship starts to move towards breakdown.
• So, who is responsible – both of you.
• Why do you say bad things – it is because of the person you are?
• What makes you the person that you are – it’s your inner core – your personality?
• What makes your personality – many diverse factors?
• What are some of those behavioral factors: your self-righteous stance, your aggressiveness, your ego, your anger, and so on.
• How do you improve the harmony of your relationship – by amending your personality?
• How do you change your personality – by studying the influence of the factors that make up your personality profile – and bringing requisite changes?
• Can one’s inherent personality be amended – certainly yes – at least to the extent of maintaining a happy relationship? 

The Personality Influence

Important personality factors that influence your behavior to spoil your relationship are: self-righteousness, ego, aggressiveness, anger, expectations, unfulfillment, etc. The influence of these factors is reflected in the things you do, such as: 

• In your daily routine interactions, you may always be thinking that it is not your fault; it is your partner’s fault.
• You think you are always right, she is wrong.
• You think you know all – and what you know is the only right.
• You think that she doesn’t know anything – or she doesn’t know as much as you do.
• You may think that she is not intelligent and her opinions are not sound.
• Your have a very arrogant, and prideful ego that controls your actions. Your ego doesn’t let you compromise.
• You do not accept the fact that everybody is different, and that your spouse can have a difference of opinion – and she has a right to her opinions.
• You have no control over your anger – you hoard anger about the other – you are an angry person.
• Your are pushy and aggressive – it’s your way or no way.
• Your aggressive nature, combined with your arrogance, pride, and anger, wants to prove that the other is wrong – and want to teach the other a lesson of life.
• You fail to understand that the other person is as much a person as you are – with different likes and dislikes – and that the others have as much right to be the person they are as you have.
• You rarely manifest your true feelings of love for the other.
• You are self-centered most of the time – thinking about your own feelings and wishes rather than that of your spouse.
• Your unreasonable and untenable expectations of the other must have created anger and frustration.
• Perhaps, you are emotionally unfulfilled, and that makes you unhappy in a relationship.
• You may have a negative disposition and mindset that can cause distance between you and your spouse.
• You may have insulted her or tried to put her down in front of others.

What You Must Understand

• You must understand that your spouse is as much a person as you are.
• She may have different likes and dislikes – different way of thinking – and she has a right to be what she is – just as much as you have a right to be what you are.
• You are not the only one that knows the best or is always right – others are as equally intelligent, or even more, as you are
• You must respect her total existence as much as you respect your own.
• You must never put her down in front of others.
• You must not impose your aggressiveness and your will onto her, especially if it goes against her own thinking.
• There is no room for arrogance – stubbornness – ego – in a good relationship.
• You must control your anger at all times.
• You must not impose your expectations onto her, especially if they are unreasonable and they go against her wishes.
• Remember the “musts” of a good relationship:
  -        Equality
  -        Respect for each other
  -        Humble surrenders
  -        Request, not demand
  -        Discuss, not argue
  -        Respect for each others opinion
  -       A show of love – genuine love. 

Mending Your Ailing Relationship

• The first step: If the relationship has gone so bad that you are neither communicating with each other as happily as you used to, nor touching or holding each other – then these two things you have to bring back first: the touch and the breaking of silence.
• Find an appropriate moment or opportunity – hold your partner – say that you want to talk to her.
• Holding and humbling your ego tightly under your control – say sorry – that you have been negligent of her feelings. Show as if it is your fault, rather than hers.
• This you have to say to start the process, irrespective of whether it was your fault or not. You do want to mend your relationship – don’t you? Watch it! Your ego is not going to let you do that – take control of your ego.
• Next, you ask your partner as to what is bothering her or what has hurt her feelings? Start with her list first – don’t bring in your list yet.
• Deal with one item at a time. Don’t create a traffic jam by bringing in too many things.
• Listen to her patiently. Be sensitive to her feelings. Don’t blame her for anything, even when you think it was her fault – at least not yet, until you have created a palatable level of communication.
• Discuss, don’t argue. Be humble and respectful.
• Keep all of your own personality traits under control.
• Have the courage to accept your fault.
• Say sorry if you need to.
• Now you can bring in your own list of concerns. Slowly, carefully, and without putting the blame on her, start with the most obvious concern. Move to the other concerns one by one and clarify as many causes of discontent as possible.
• Agree to forgive and forget.
• Close the discussion with affectionate partings.

Today, I want to write about the most dangerous and unwanted personality characteristic of our “self” – the “ego”. 

Nobody knows for sure what ego is and where does it reside in our body. But we do know that there is some force, somewhere inside us, which we call ego, that controls our actions – makes us stubborn and self-conceited – prideful – vain – and at times uncooperative and outright impossible. Ego is our worst enemy, and unfortunately, this enemy is inside us. And believe me – some people love it. To me, ego in nothing more than plain bad news. 

What is the function of ego? I guess, it is to safeguard your self-esteem or perhaps false self-esteem. Ego is always in a state of readiness – ready to fight on a moment’s notice. It stands by your self, watching and guarding your pride. Ego is very highly sensitive and emotional. A slight puff of unwanted words can tilt its emotional balance and makes it ready to fight back, even when the fight is not even warranted. 

Ego will never let you do anything that will hurt ego’s false pride. Nothing is good or bad unless ego says so. If your ego is destructive in nature, you will always be fighting with others or with your own imagery. You hate people – you want to fix everybody – you want to change the world to your standards. In fact, there is nothing good about ego – ego is all-bad.  

Ego makes us self-conceited, arrogant, uncompromising, and vain. When you have a room full of people in a meeting room discussing a problem – you really have a room full of big egos – each ego being sure that he is the only one who is right or who knows what is the best. Ego is the single most negativistic aspect of our being that is responsible for the greatest amount of problems.  

Typically, we are governed by the following egos: 

§       The Arrogant Ego

§       The Proud Ego

§       The Vain Ego

§       The Bragging Ego

§       The Cunning Ego

§       The Self-Righteous Ego

§       The Aggressive Ego

§       The Angry Ego

§       The Expectant Ego

§       The Unfulfilled Ego

§       The Possessive Ego

§       The Pushy Ego

§       The Non-Forgettable and the Non-Forgivable Ego

§       The Misinterpreting Ego 

By their name, they are all self-explanatory. What you need to realize is that you are a slave to your ego – and it plays havoc in your life and relationships? Taming and controlling your ego is the hardest thing in the world – you would need the power of the Gods to do it. But, it can be done if you are determined and patient. Changes can be induced in your ego if you stop being a bigot – if you are open, honest, and matured – if you do not indulge yourself in false self-esteem – if you are fulfilled. You have to have a dialogue with your self, almost on a continuous basis, to bring home to you that: 

§       You are not the only one who is right.

§       You are not the only one who has an ego – a sense of self-pride.

§       You don’t have to be so emotional that anything or everything will hurt you.

§       Nothing will happen if, for example, the glass breaks – heavens won’t fall off – so that you should not get so sensitive and angry so quickly.
 

It is matter of mind over matter – to constantly humble your false pride – to be compassionate about what others think. It is a state of serenity that has to overtake the haughtiness of your ego.

Your relationship is heading towards failure, when

• You have stopped touching each other. Touch is the first casuality of a failing relationship. In a bad relationship, you feel a sense of repulsion to touch each other.
• You have become silent with each other. You are tired of fighting with each other – nagging each other – and now you give each other the royal silent treatmenr.
• You have stopped making love to each other. Love needs love, happiness, and togetherness – love is a matter of the mind rather than of the body.
• You carry too much anger for each other.
• You avoid direct eye contact with each other.
• You thinks you are right – the other is not.
• You try to criticize the other and attemt to put the other down,
• You are critical of the other’s likings and dislikings – you think what you know and like is the only best.
• You are too aggressive and you tread over others with total disregard of the other’s feelings.
• Your mindset has become negative – you tend to draw wrong meanings of right things.
• You don’t trust each other.
• Co-dependence is suffocating you.
• You rarely go out together for a movie or for dinner.
• You mind your own business – there is little contact between you two.
• You are silently separated.