Reflections on life. Collections of inspirational quotes. Rediscovering relationships and faith.
Posted in COMMITMENT, COMMUNICATION, LOVE, QUOTES, RELATIONSHIP QUOTES, RELATIONSHIPS on Jun 20th, 2012 No Comments »
“Love doesn’t lie, people do. Love doesn’t leave, people do. Love surely doesn’t leave you broken and annoyed. That’s something only a person is capable of doing. Don’t blame love, if it’s not in you.” –DeAndre Carswell
Are you happy with your relationship?Do you still feel the need to hold on to it even when you no longer feel its magical power of not being annoyed by your partner’s smell, look, opinions and behavior?
You slowly feel your needs are not satisfied. Emotionally, physically, financially, sexually and morally you feel like going down the drain.You feel hurt, in pain and alone.You might post your status in Facebook from “ In a relationship” to “it’s complicated” leaning to “single” and finally “unstable”!
Now let’s take an honest look at the mirror and ask ourselves “what have I done for this relationship?” “Am I still committed to this relationship?”For me it is important to believe that love is MORE than just a feeling. Love is also a decision, a commitment, a choice.Having said so, let us evaluate 5 important areas of our relationship.
5. Don’t keep score – Keeping score is one of the most damaging things you can do to your relationship. I did the dishes last night, it’s his turn to apologize , it’s her turn to clean the bathroom, sexual intimacy is going zero every week, etc. Keeping score leads to resentment, hard feelings and a whole lot of stuff. If you find yourself starting to keep score -STOP- get together and talk. Talk about joint responsibilities, set realistic expectations, and talk openly about how you may feel you’re being taken for granted and where the other person could pitch in.
All relationships have their ups and downs just like a roller coaster. It does not ride at a continuous high all the time. Working together through the hard times will make the relationship stronger. Patience, respect , listening skills and love are our handy tools.
So try to make a good sense of a bad relationship by examining it as a reflection of your beliefs about yourself. Don’t just run away from a bad relationship; you’ll only repeat it with the next partner.Let us examine it and use it as a mirror to look at yourself, to understand what in you is creating this relationship.
Change yourself before you change your relationship. Remember, love is not an absolute, not a limited commodity that you’re in of or out of.It’s a feeling that ebbs and flows depending on how you treat each other.If you learn new ways to interact, the feelings can come flowing back, often stronger than before. What do you think?
RELATIONSHIP QUOTES
Man is a knot into which relationships are tied. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,Flight to Arras, 1942, translated from French by Lewis Galantière
Celebrate every relationship you have ever had. For better or worse, our relationships are our best teachers. And on a soul level, we’ve attracted each and every one of them so we can learn and grow. -Dr. Christiane Northrup
Relationship is an art. The dream that two people create is more difficult to master than one. – Don Miguel Ruiz
Relationships are harder now because conversations became texting, arguments became phone calls, feelings became subliminal messages online. Sex became easy, the word “love” gets used out of context, insecurities have become your way of thinking. Getting jealous became a habit, trust has been lost, cheating became an accident, leaving became the only option and being hurt became natural. –unknown
Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand. – Emily Kimbrough
There are days when you need someone who just wants to be your sunshine and not the air you breathe. –Robert Brault
Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in the shade. – Leo Buscaglia
If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? – Stephen Levine
Assumptions are the termites of relationships. – Henry Winkler
I felt it shelter to speak to you. – Emily Dickinson
Are we not like two volumes of one book? ~Marceline Desbordes-Valmor
Relationships: If you put up with it, you’re going to end up with it. Set the standard you want and don’t settle for less. -Steve Maraboli
Every relationship can be a lesson in self-worth. The person who is the hardest to forgive is the one who can teach you the greatest lessons. Its important to remember, that when you believe that – We are all One, its virtually impossible to find that hurting another feels good. For hurting another means hurting yourself. So-called irresponsible behavior vanishes and your gifted with the freedom to create a new life.” –Neale Donald Walsch
To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship. – Doménico Cieri Estrada
Never give up on someone you can’t go a day without thinking about. –Author Unknown
As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn’t supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it’s harder every time. You’ll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You’ll fight with your best friend. You’ll blame a new love for things an old one did. You’ll cry because time is passing too fast, and you’ll eventually lose someone you love. -Author Unknown
Don’t bring baggage from an ex-relationship into your next relationship…unless you want it to be a short trip.” –Robert Tew
Without a single thought, two hands collide and the world finally makes sense again. – Kayla Dawn
Happiness is having a dream you cannot let go of and a partner who would never ask you to. – Robert Brault
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. – Oprah Winfrey
There are times when two people need to step apart from one another, but there is no rule that says they have to turn and fire. – Robert Brault
Plan your relationships around your life… Not your life around your relationships. –Robert Tew
Not all relationships are meant to last, they’re just practice for the one that does. -Linda Poindexter
Love makes the relationship. Trust makes the difference in the success of the relationship. –Mark Amend
Posted in COMMITMENT, COMMITMENT QUOTES, FAITH, Homosexuality, LOVE, RELATIONSHIPS on Jul 25th, 2008 No Comments »
“One day you will ask me which is more important? my life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.” Khalil Gibran
“My dearest Michael, it was 30 years ago that we first pledged our commitment to one another, but it seems like just yesterday that I was standing across from my handsome partner. We have been through a lot together. We have survived all contradictions and pressures from our parents and relatives. They did not believe in our relationship. Through all those times, I can honestly say, I loved you every step of the way. You have shown me what love feels like and for that I thank you.
Today, I want to renew those vows and again pledge my love and life to you. I promise to be there for you in sickness, especially now, cancer is ripping you away from me. I will always think that you are perfect – perfect for me. I am here to be your supporter, your confidant, and your best friend.
You are everything I need and at this moment I know all of my prayers have been answered and that all of my dreams have come true. I have been blessed for the last 30 years and I praise God for you Michael: for all of your love and constant friendship. I know that our love is heaven sent and I promise to be here for ever and always. From this day forward, you shall not walk alone. My heart will be your shelter and my arms will be your home. As I have given you my hand to hold, I give you my life to keep.
I love you.”
I had the chance to witness this touching pledge of love between two souls who have supported one another in their weaknesses and mistakes in life. Their love is like light, growing dearer towards the dark
I have known them for many years. I have watched them and become a testimony of their love. I saw their struggles against the conventions of society. A long of period of unemployment to be able to stand by and assist a dying partner. I know that their deep faith in God’s Mercy and Love, lifelong commitment, loyalty, and self-denying love are the dominant themes of their long term relationship. They have taught me that true love never gives up, it “never fails“.
How many of us have given up on our relationships or marriage? Unwilling to endure through better or worse, sickness or health, poverty or wealth?
Three days ago after their renewal of vows, Michael died. He did not die in vain. He left a legacy: Enduring love and commitment is possible even between two males.
John showing me Michael’s last note
The world, for me, and all the world can hold is circled in your arms,
for me there lies within the lights and shadows of your eyes the only beauty that is never old.”
made me realize they both shared their last wisdom of the afternoon.
COMMITMENT QUOTES
We only regard those unions as real examples of love and real marriages in which a fixed and unalterable decision has been taken. If men or women contemplate an escape, they do not collect all their powers for the task. In none of the serious and important tasks of life do we arrange such a “getaway.” We cannot love and be limited. – Alfred Adler
Domestic bliss and divorce are but two sides of the same coin, that coin being commitment” – Cheong Suk-Wai
Does anybody really think that they didn’t get what they had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? – Nelson Mandela
The fear of making permanent commitments can change the mutual love of husband and wife into two loves of self-two loves existing side by side, until they end in separation. – Pope John Paul II
I believe life is constantly testing us for our level of commitment, and life’s greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate a never-ending commitment to act until they achieve. This level of resolve can move mountains, but it must be constant and consistent. As simplistic as this may sound, it is still the common denominator separating those who live their dreams from those who live in regret. – Anthony Robbins
When you make a commitment to a relationship, you invest your attention and energy in it more profoundly because you now experience ownership of that relationship. – Barbara De Angelis
You need to make a commitment, and once you make it, then life will give you some answers. – Les Brown
So, before you are tempted to give up or get discouraged, remember all success is based on long term commitment, faith, discipline, attitude and a few stepping stones along the way. You might not like the stone you are on right now, but it’s sure to be one of the stones that lead to great opportunities in the future. – E. James ‘Jim’ Rohn
Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being “drawn toward.” Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation with one’s friends and enemies. – Carter Heyward
Unless commitment is made, there are only promisesand hopes but no plans.” – Peter Drucker
In life, many thoughts are born in the course of a moment, an hour, a day. Some are dreams, some visions. Often, we are unable to distinguish between them. To some, they are the same; however, not all dreams are visions. Much energy is lost in fanciful dreams that never bear fruit. But visions are messages from the Great Spirit, each for a different purpose in life. Consequently, one person’s vision may not be that of another. To have a vision, one must be prepared to receive it, and when it comes, to accept it. Thus when these inner urges become reality, only then can visions be fulfilled. The spiritual side of life knows everyone’s heart and who to trust. How could a vision ever be given to someone to harbor if that person could not be trusted to carry it out. The message is simple: commitment precedes vision. – High Eagle
I’m doing what I think I was put on this earth to do. And I’m really grateful to have something that I’m passionate about and that I think is profoundly important. – Marian Wright Edelman
Commitment is not the end-all. It brings the beginning of another age, another war, not an automatic happiness. The circumstances under which the choice is made is not predeterminate. Thus the indeed mythical line: ‘They married and lived happily ever after’ should have been ‘They married and may live happily ever after’.” – Marcie Gordon
Whoever said anybody has a right to give up? – Marian Wright Edelman
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. – Attributed to Talmud
The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt. – Rollo May
Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. – John Wesley
A promise must never be broken. – Alexander Hamilton
Losers make promises they often break. Winners make commitments they always keep. – Denis Waitley
You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. – Margaret Thatcher
If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. –Vincent Van Gogh
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. –Mark Twain
The question in life is not wheter you get knocked down. You will. The quesiton is, are you ready to get back up … and fight for what you believe in? – Dan Quayle
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare. It is because we do not dare that things are difficult. – Seneca
“Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely.” – Charles Dickens
Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision, and gives us the ‘right stuff’ to turn our dreams into reality. –James Womack
He who is most slow in making a promise is the most faithful in performance of it. –Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The fear of making permanent commitments can change the mutual love of husband and wife into two loves of self – two loves existing side by side, until they end in separation.” –Pope John Paul II
Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still.”-Robert J. Sternberg
Committing yourself is a way of finding out who you are. A man finds his identity by identifying.” –Robert Terwilliger
I can’t imagine a person becoming a success who doesn’t give this game of life everything he’s got.” –Walter Cronkite
Never, never, never give up.” –Winston Churchill