The Key To Relationships

when she says, "Could you do X?" And I say, "I don't know understand what you're talking about. I don't know why I have to do that. I don't know why I have to do it now. I don't know why we need to do it at all. It doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't benefit me. I don't believe it benefits the family. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever." She says, "Okay, that's fine. Nice. Will you do it anyway?" The entire relationship, the entire relationship is subsumed into how we answer and respond in those moments. Because if we only participate, if we only accept, if we only take action and do when it makes sense, when we see the benefit for us, then we're not really invested in a relationship with the other. We only care about oursel. But when we're willing to do it even when it makes no sense to us. When we're willing to do it even when we don't see how it benefits us. When we're willing to do it because the other party says, "Just do it because I asked," then it in fact reflects on all the other things that we do that they're not only because we see the benefit. That the whole relationship is informed and animated by a devotion, by a loyalty, by a commitment to want to make the other party happy.