People say it about relationships all the time and it seems to stay true. NEVER BURN BRIDGES. I have a tendency to want to pull out the gasoline and burn bridges down! To just torch relationships as soon as they don’t bring forth certain fruit that I am expecting. It has nothing to do with the individuals, just with me. Typically this occurs when I am not living up to the knowledge and ideas I am aware of. I get frustrated by people who ask me for advice and then do not apply it in their lives (The reason I get so frustrated is because I do the exact same thing).
In the last month or so I have had many relationships come full circle. By this I mean that people who I may not have spent much time with before the last month have come flooding back into my life. It has been powerful, quite a few people for many different reasons. They all seem like new relationships because they are much clearer now, and much of the conversation is different from before when we were friends.
Some have come back because we just ran into each other, some because they have been thinking differently, some because I have been thinking differently. A few have come back because I have wanted to involve them for sometime. It is one of those weird things that happens where you notice a big difference in your life and it keeps happening. Kind of like when you see a new car that you like and now you cannot miss one on the road, and you never noticed them before but now you can’t not notice them.
The moral of the story, I guess, is keep all relationships away from the fire. Yes some people may do dumb stuff to us, take advantage, or whatever, but the key is to never burn a bridge. We may need to distance ourselves from them for a while but never burn it down. For me many times I think I have to burn things down but I tend to drift away from people. It is a natural process to drift in and out of friendship with people. I look forward to who I will run into tomorrow. Life is great. People are the only truly valuable things in our lives.

I think the word by itself is suitable. Marriage. That is a sentence. That is a statement. That is a paragraph. It is so powerful. I would guess that marriage is one of the prime movers in the world. This idea dictates alot of the choices that people make. I see alot of unhappy people that are married. My observations thus far into life and into my own marriage have taught me that people aren’t unhappy about the companionship, but the choices they make because they are in a companionship.

What I’ve seen is that people (myself included) choose to ‘do things for the other person’. They do it at the sacrifice of their own interests and they think it is the ‘saintly’ thing to do.  That is self-deception. Everything you have done, now do, and will do is done because you want to do it. You may think it is done because of fear of loss, rejection, to avoid a fight, etc… but self interest governs in life, and in marriage. You do what you want to do. If you don’t want to do something you may do it half-assed or complain while you do it, but you do it because you want to. Maybe you married someone who doesn’t consider you as much you’d like? Well you married them, and why don’t you get their self interest involved? Incentivize them to do things you like for their own benefit as well as yours. Incentivize yourself likewise.

An example from my life: I told my wife I would not go to a concert involving a country singer because I would not enjoy it. I told her I would NOT enjoy it so much so that she would not enjoy it. So I didn’t go and she had a great time. Another concert came and she decided to go with me. It was an indy rock band and she wasn’t too excited. Well she went and wanted to leave early. She politely offered to go wait in the car but I didn’t want to have her sit in the car in the city that we were in. So we left early. I was bugged but I wanted to be a gentleman. She didnt enjoy the show at all and it did effect me.

Conclusion: Get both parties self-interest involved and happiness and fun will inevitably follow. Show each other your self-interest and you will find ways to get both satisfied. It is called enlightened self-interest when you have the other persons self-interest being fulfilled on a level close to your own. Magical things happen when self-interest is discovered and used accordingly. Try it on. Leave a post if you disagree.

On January 5th I was sealed to my wife Kady for all time. Getting married has brought about such an amazing change in my life. As I was preparing to get married (definitely could’ve prepared more!) everything seemed to be teaching me new things about myself. Communication is so powerful! Once you think you master it you get humbled in the very immediate future. I have learned so much about how poor my communication is! I love Kady for the sincere person that she is and the lovely spirit she has. She deals with my quirks and OCD moments very well. She does the cutest things and is very thoughtful of me. We have committed to help each other develop our talents and abilities, and to not be offended by anything one of us may say or do. I feel like our commitment to each other enables eternal progression and we strive every week to keep our commitments to God and each other.