Separating your wants from needs

A mail I recently received in my box reads: “In most cases, especially in relationships, you will only get 80% of what you need and you will hardly get the other 20% that you want in your relationship.  There is always another person that you will meet and that will offer you the other 20% which is lacking in your relationship that you want.

“And believe me, 20% looks really good when you are not getting it at all in your current relationship.  But the problem is that you will always be tempted to leave that good 80% that you know you have, thinking that you will get something better with the other 20% that you want.  But as reality has proven, in most cases, you will always end up with having the 20% that you want and loosing the 80% that you really need and already had.

“Be careful in deciding between what you want and need in your life. But wait! That’s only 20% of what you don’t have. Don’t throw away the 80% that you already have! That’s not all. Add to your spouse’s 80% the 100% that represents all the years that you have been with each other.”

Problems start to happen when you start looking for what you don’t have.  But faithfulness happens when you start thanking God for what you already have.  But I’m not just talking about marriage. I’m talking about life in general!  The main message! If you start appreciating what you have right now, wherever you are, you are first class!

Men and women live in relationships and are sometimes unhappy because they do not get what they need form their partners or the other person. We have all seen divorce rate increase because of irreparable differences that could not be sorted out amicably. Most of all these differences could have being prevented if we had learned to appreciate what we already have in the relationship. Unfortunately there are times when our needs or wants cannot be fulfilled by the person we are with.

No matter how much people appreciate things being done for them, they at times fail to show the desired appreciation. They fail to realise that a sign of appreciation is always a thoughtful gesture. It often does not take much to show someone they are appreciated, it just takes deciding to do it and deciding how to do it.

When you do not show appreciation in relationships you risk the chance of running into trouble. This is because appreciation is one of the best expression for showing love and care. It is extremely important to show appreciation to your partner, likewise in the relationship because as the say you never know the value of what you have until you lose it. Some people are often engrossed in what they hope to achieve forgetting what they already have. The little loopholes that we find in our relationships tend to make us forget the life of opportunity that we have. There is no relationship that is perfect and therefore we would always find one or two loopholes in our relationship with others.

“In the first place why would any right thinking person decide to throw away a life of opportunities just for the sake of some bits of lustful gains? There is definitely no way that we can have all we want in a relationship, any relationship that is 100% perfect definitely has a problem because both parties are just pretending and that is even more dangerous for the relationship,” says Binta Abdulhakeem.

Relationships where appreciation is shown regularly last longer and are always stronger than the ones where appreciation is neglected and shoved. When appreciation is neglected people start to assume that they are not getting enough or their wants and needs. When you neglect appreciation in relationships, it starts to deteriorate and the place that once had love and joy will start to have faults, blame and problem after problem. But then every wise person would know that it does not make sense flushing 80% of our happiness down the drain just because we need to get that 20% that is missing in our lives. As an adage goes ‘A bird in hand is worth two in the bush’. So the question now is: are you willing to give up on 80% of your happiness to derive the satisfaction of 20% of irrelevance in our lives? Definitely not!