why relationships matter

last week, i wrote a post about sprinters and marathoners and how my friend ross and i fit into those roles. when i mentioned my think to him he said, …“funny how you define something I’ve never really thought about myself, but now know.”

when he said that i realized yet another reason why relationships are so important. relationships teach us about ourselves in ways we could never learn without them.

this fits into so many frames through which i’ve been thinking lately. it fits into bell hooks’ understanding of love and intimate relationship because being in a loving relationship with someone is actually a really hard thing to do [link to quote tumblr post]. though many of us are trained to want and seek love, most aren’t ready for it. hooks believes that being loved by someone means they are going to want you to grow [link to definition] and that means telling you things about yourself that they see as hinderances to your own progress.

it fits into gretchen rubin’s frame of the things happy people have.

and it also fits into my upbringing as a christian. love in christianity, at least in my understanding, is demonstrated primarily through relationships with people. love and relationship also show up in much of the christian writers i revered such as wendell berry, c.s. lewis, st. augustine, g.k. chesterton, and dietrich bonhoeffer.

finally, there’s this thing called the johari window which was going to be the full subject of today’s post, but i guess i’ll have to write about tomorrow…