Relationships …a choice or a privilege!

Recently I read a facebook post from renowned Indian actor Atul Kulkarni. It was titled “Relationships should have Expiry Dates”

While some commentators agreed and understood the essence of his message, some others were greatly offended.

The post is as follows …

“At EVERY step, The nature teaches us IMPERMANENCE. And also its inevitability.
But WE design our lives around permanence. Around durability.
May it be properties , belongings or other ‘things’.
Or then Human Relationships!!
Every relationship, with belongings or with humans, should have an expiry date. Especially artificial arrangements like marriage system. There should be a chance right WITHIN THE SYSTEM of either renewing the relationship or terminating it after a particular period…
With that kind of a MENTAL and EMOTIONAL preparedness, we would think and behave differently.
When we accept this ‘temporariness’ ; things , people , emotions , relations etc might be handled by us in a much better manner…
Only Change is permanent !!”

I think this is a very profound thought process. Every relationship is a privilege or a choice made. For marriages that last life long …the only way it is true or fair, is when it is a choice made everyday, every month, every year, at every adventurous and also treacherous turn of life. There is awareness about the reasons you are sticking together. Pure love, respect, trust and commitment is one. There may also be significant level of habitual comfort in being in that relationship, or a strong hold of the aspect of cultural conditioning. All reasons are valid as long as you are aware of them, together. This awareness gives you a sense of freedom of choice and growth in other areas of life. And this can be true of any other kind of relations …the relations you are born with or you choose to make.

Healthy relationships are a combination of courage, strength, vulnerability and trust. It takes courage to keep evolving as an individual, while being in a relationship. It takes strength to support your partner, or any other relations for that matter, to do the same. One needs to take down all barriers, show up in all vulnerability, to be true, so the real you is the one in the relationship …no games, no agendas. It takes trust to allow all of this and still sustain the relationship.

Yes, only change is permanent. We are not comfortable when not growing into our best versions. So we need to stop locking down everyone’s reality to be a certain way, for our own comfort! Knowing that everything has an expiry to it, will allow us to value what we have and keep the courage to have what we value. We will not live unabashedly disrespecting the existence of another …