Everyday Canvas

On Meaningful Relationships of Any Kind

Prompt: What do you think is the basic secret or secrets to meaningful relationships? By this, I mean any kind of a relationship, man-woman, parent-child, sibling to sibling, friendships, etc.

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For an all-encompassing prompt like this, I always look to Shakespeare. This one's from Hamlet.

"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

When I first thought about this subject, the first idea that came to my mind was love, but love is a misunderstood term as it is mostly mistaken for desire, which seeks gratification. A person who truly knows what it means to love doesn't worry when his or her love is unrecognized or rejected.

I think being truly loving is being real; therefore, the greatest love we can offer to people, whatever the relationship is, to transform our inner lives so that others are attracted enough to our inner goodness to stay with us through thick and thin. This is because a person who has worked on himself or herself has developed a keen insight to other people's inner workings. In any relationship, the person with the most self-insight will be calmer, more confident, and more comfortable with other people. Always working for more self-knowledge pays because we understand others to the exact degree that we understand ourselves.

I believe there are other smaller points in the way we act toward others to consider as well. They are:

• Not letting the words or behaviors of other people to decide how we feel.

• Not surrendering our original nature and personal dignity to the other person.

• Not living timidly from the fear of what others will think of us or what we will think of ourselves.

• Recognizing the virtues in others.

• Paying more attention to people's innermost motives for speaking and acting in certain ways, a lot more than to what they say or do.

• Showing psychological maturity by ignoring petty behavior. Defending ourselves vehemently against trivial words or behavior, small slanders, or any other such attacks is unnecessary, because resistance against such stuff disturbs our own state of mind.

• Not rushing to replace a valuable person lost to us, as this may prevent us from examining the heartache and coming to terms with it.

• Not being afraid to fully experience everything in any relationship, especially the pains and disappointments, for all experiences lead to better understanding of ourselves and others.

• Not fearing to be a nobody or an unimportant person in a social group. This has to do with internal humility, which is the deeper truth in becoming a genuine human being.


I believe in the truth where creation is concerned that there is no difference between us and the other person, as we cannot hurt another without hurting ourselves; neither can we help anyone without helping ourselves in some way. If we free ourselves from the unnecessary desires toward other people, they can't deceive or hurt us. If we hold on to the positive forces and do whatever we can to foster them, but try not to give in to the parts in us that don't want a loving life --as we all may have those parts in us, suppressed though they may be--, we will feel happier and more accomplished in all our relationships.