Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life (7 page)

What to Do with Your Current Relationships

Once your list is complete, look it over and answer some important questions:

• How many relationships do you have? 
  
• Why so many (or so few)? 
  
• What percentage are
  primary
  relationships? 
  
• What percentage are
  secondary
  relationships? 
  
• What percentage are
  periphery
  relationships? 
  
• What percentage are positive relationships? 
  
• What percentage are negative relationships? 
  
• What percentage are neutral relationships?
  

Once you answer these questions, it’s time to divide and conquer. It’s obvious that your most important relationships—be it negative or positive—are in your top two tiers, with the most important residing in the
primary
tier. But unfortunately, because the majority of your relationships reside in the periphery, you most likely allocate the majority of your time to those people. Consequently, you focus most of your time, effort, and attention on the group of people that matters least to you. 

This needs to change.

First, take a look at everyone in your
periphery
tier. Are some of these individuals people you’d like to see play a larger role in your life? Are they the people you’d like to have in your
primary
or
secondary
tiers? If so, what actions do you need to take to strengthen these relationships? What actions must you take to help them grow? Take a moment and consider these relationships.

Once you’ve discovered the
periphery
relationships you’d like to move into your top two tiers, it’s important to realize the role of the remaining people in your
periphery
group. These are people you care about, people you wish great things for, but they are also people who consume the majority of your most precious commodity—your time. Thus, it is imperative that you dedicate less time to this group and focus your attention towards your
primary
and
secondary
tiers (including those people in the
periphery
whom you want to move into those tiers). For some people, this might mean saying
no
more often, or turning down future commitments. For others, it might require a sit-down meeting explaining that you need your time back to focus on other aspects of your life. The idea here is to focus on creating the most meaningful relationships possible—relationships that will reside in your top two tiers.

Similarly, there are certain people in your
primary
and
secondary
tiers who likely don’t belong there. It is up to you to decide which role these people play in your lives. This is especially true for the relationships you labeled as
negative
relationships for the people in these tiers.

Your relationships will not remain static for the rest of your life. People will constantly shift in and out of your life and around in your relationship tiers as you grow and they grow. Many people who were incredibly relevant for you 10 years ago are far less relevant today, right? Likewise, your future relationships will continue to shift, change, and grow. But it’s important you play an active part in this process—that you’re actively engaged in your relationship selection—which often includes making some difficult decisions about the people in your top two tiers.

The Most Important Relationships

Your
primary
relationships are by far the most important relationships in your life. This is your core team—the people who are most important to you. The rest of this chapter will be focused on these
primary
relationships (present and future
primary
relationships). These are the people you love, the people for whom you would do anything. These relationships typically include:

• Intimate relationships
  . Your lover, partner, spouse, significant other. This is typically the most important relationship in your life, and it should be treated accordingly.
  
• Closest friends
  . We often call these people our best friend or friends. This group of closest friends usually consists of fewer than five people with whom you are incredibly close and care about deeply. That thing your parents said about counting your closest friends on one hand is generally true.
  
• Immediate family
  . Parents, children, and other close family members fall into this category.
  

A note about your
secondary
relationships: Your
secondary
relationships are important as well (vastly more important than your
periphery
relationships), but should only receive your time and attention once your commitment to your
primary
relationships is fulfilled. You must treat your
primary
relationships as your top priority. This might mean shifting one or two people from your
secondary
tier into your
primary
tier (or vice versa) if necessary.

Change Yourself, Not Others

You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you.

Sometimes you have to get rid of certain relationships, even relationships of great value. Sometimes a person’s beliefs or values are radically different than yours. When this is the case it’s okay to terminate the relationship or at least change the terms of the relationship. 

We all change over time. Sometimes we grow closer to certain people, sometimes we grow apart, sometimes we fall out of love, sometimes we change together. Just because someone has changed, doesn’t mean they don’t love you, it doesn’t mean they don’t care about you immensely; it just means they’ve changed. 

Moreover, you cannot expect a person to change in every way you want them to change. Of course, some people make radical changes in their lives, but it is not your responsibility in any relationship to expect someone to change to adhere to your standards, beliefs, or values.

The only person you can change is yourself. When you change yourself—when you lead by example—often times the people closest to you will follow suit. If you change your diet, start exercising, start paying close attention to your important relationships, and set higher relationship standards, then you’ll notice other people doing the same thing. If the best version of you shows up to the party, you’ll be able to bring the best out of other people.

Unfortunately, there will be times when certain relationships don’t work—be it marriages, intimate relationships, close friendships, employee-boss relationships, relationships with family members, etc. The best thing you can do is change yourself (not attempt to change the other person). You don’t have to stay in a relationship if you are unhappy. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make an effort to get to the root of the relationship’s problems—it means that you can change the relationship if it is not working. 

Before you change or terminate a relationship, you should get a vision of what you’d like it to look like in the future. The following sections discuss specific ideas on how to envision a new future for your relationships.

Relationship Growth

Suffice it to say, no matter how positive or negative your current relationships are, you want them to improve so you have outstanding future relationships. Even the greatest relationships need to grow to remain great. In fact, the best relationships are always growing—that’s one of the reasons they’re so great. If your relationships aren’t growing, they’re dying. But when your relationships grow, you feel alive. 

Seeking & Selecting Future Relationships

Without a vision, people perish. We’ve all heard that before. The same is true for our relationships, especially our
primary
relationships. Without a vision, you will settle for whatever is in front of you. Thus, you need a compelling vision of what you want your relationships to be, what you want your relationships to look like. If your vision is compelling enough, you’ll do anything to make it happen.

There are three things to consider when seeking new relationships (or improving your current relationships):

1. What do you really want?
   At the surface, this seems like a fairly vapid question, but it is of the utmost importance. Write down everything you want from your
   primary
   relationships (intimate relationships, close friendships, and the like). What do they look like? What do you want to do together? What do you want from them mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally? What types of desires must these people have? What are their beliefs, values, rules, fears?
   
2. What must
   not
   occur within the relationship?
   You can find everything you want in a person, but if they also carry a belief or value you must not have in your life, it can ruin the entire relationship. For example, say you find an intimate relationship and the other person appears to have everything you wanted above, except he or she is unsupportive. If an unsupportive person is something you must not have, then that relationship will not work long-term. Go ahead, make your list of things that must not occur in your relationships.
   
3. Who do you need to become to attract this kind of person?
   Once you’ve determined what you want and what you must not have, you must determine what changes you’ll need to make within yourself to attract this kind of person as a friend, lover, or whatever relationship you are looking for. Must you listen more? Must you get into better shape? Must you learn how to better communicate? Write down what you’ll need to change in your life to attract these new relationships.
   

Once you’ve answered these three questions, read this list daily. It’s important to know what you’re looking for, what you want to avoid, and what you need to change within yourself to get these results.

Making Passionate Relationships Work

Commonalities make relationships work, but
differences
make relationships exciting and passionate. You need both—commonalities and differences—to make passionate relationships work long-term.

Sometimes people enter into a relationship based solely on chemistry. Chemistry is typically associated with variety, and it’s great at first. It’s easy to be attracted to someone because they are different. Unfortunately, chemistry alone is not sustainable. Over time, too many differences can become annoying, frustrating, and troublesome. And as we mentioned earlier, some differences in areas like values, beliefs, and individual needs can completely destroy a relationship in the long-run.

Conversely, sharing a lot of commonalities with someone sounds great, but having too many things in common becomes boring. Being just like someone else lacks the variety you need to keep your relationship passionate. Too often a relationship falls apart because, instead of working together as a team, the two people become extensions of each other, appendages that get in the way.

The best relationships share a healthy combination of commonalities and differences. While you embrace the things you have in common, you can also learn to respect and enjoy your differences. Doing so will allow you to experience the balance of certainty and variety necessary for a sustainable, meaningful relationship.

Eight Fundaments of Great Relationships

Meaningful relationships have eight main elements that must be nurtured for the relationships to grow and improve over time: love, understanding, trust, honesty, caring, support, time, and authenticity. The following eight sections discuss each of these fundaments.

Love

It is possible to dislike certain parts of a person and still love every piece of them. Your
primary
relationships require immense amounts of love. If you truly love someone, what are you willing to do for them? Anything! You should be willing to bend over backwards, to go to great lengths for the people you love. That’s how you strengthen your relationships.

Furthermore, being loved is different than being needed. You should, however, work hard to understand what your loved ones need. And the
primary
relationships in your life should feel the same way towards you. If they don’t, you must ask yourself if that person is worthy of being one of your
primary
relationships and the time you must dedicate to said relationships.

Understanding

When you understand someone, you are able to feel what they are feeling. What drives the other person? What do they want? What do they need? What excites them? What are their desires? What are their pains? What do they enjoy? What makes them happy?

If you can’t answer these questions, then how are you going to meet their needs? Sometimes the things that people ask for are not what they need, but if you are meeting someone’s needs, then you’re guaranteed to have a vibrant, passionate, growing relationship.

Trust

When you absolutely trust someone, you are open, you are the real you, which fosters the closest possible relationship. Trust breeds more trust, which encourages habitual honesty from both parties.

Honesty

To lie is to intentionally mislead someone when they expect honest communication. Sometimes it feels like it’s easier to lie, but no matter the circumstance—no matter how small or big the lie is—lying is wrong and harmful to your relationships.

“Honesty is a gift we can give others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity,” Dr. Sam Harris wrote in his book,
LYING
. He continued by stating, “Knowing that we will attempt to tell the truth, whatever the circumstances, leaves us with little to prepare for. We can simply be ourselves.”