We think we only have relationships with other people, but that’s not true. We have relationships with everything in this universe. Places, jobs, things and even memories. The thing about these relationships is that, unlike us, they can travel through time. And they will.
When we form a new relationship, we usually think…
“I’ll just move into this flat for now, I’ll find a better place soon.”
“We’ll just get dinner once and take things from there.”
“This is just a temporary gig, I’ll do this job no longer than a year.”
‘Just’ is the most dangerous word in the English language. In a deliberate life, there is no such thing. Every single one of your relationships matters. We spend so little time deciding where, when and how to begin them, but those beginnings quickly disappear into commitments. And commitments are what life is made of. All of a sudden, years have gone by.
That’s how one day, you wake up and realize you’ve been living in the past. Or are stuck in a dead end job. A broken relationship. Because it’s traveled through time and dragged you right with it.
And, also unlike us, life makes no exceptions. Not even for the connections you care about the most. Those merely travel the other way around. Your mom, your dad, your sister, your best friend, the person you expect to marry. Life always cuts these relationships short, because in contrast to our many unreflected commitments, they can never be long enough.
Relationships can travel through time. You can’t. But you can choose your relationships. Make sure you do.