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Do not ignore the story of what it means to trade off your soul cheaply; it’s a famous story, retold so many times, from “The Count of Monte Cristo,” to more modern approaches, such as Nicholas Sparks, “The Last Song,” the idea is not hard to grasp, the relationship that is one sided, and the big side of the wishbone, isn’t on your side!  Sure it’s easy to say that we’re going to be big, we’re going to walk away, we’re going to do the “right thing,” only when you come to the point of decision, where it counts, if you are like me, your heart gets in the way, and you run the danger of making a lousy trade and cheapening your own worth.

Truth be told we aren’t people who like solitude, some solitude is good, but a lot of solitude tends to wear us and mold us, and unless it is self imposed; such as the poet Thoreau; it can end, badly.  This means that we form relationships on a constant basis, most of them, good, wholesome, well intentioned.  Many of them deep, meaningful, heartfelt and important, life focusing and life changing relationships.  We form relationships around portions of our lives, such as work and enterprise.  We form relationships based on hobbies and fun, folks who do sports together, or clubs which read and paint together.  We form relationships and we believe that it is a higher form of behavior than animalistic herding?  Truth be told, we aren’t very singular folks for the most part, we form relationships.

The soulfulness in such relationships is often ignored; which is unfortunate because even if there is no higher design than the mental exercise of good social psychology under the guise of hoping for better days ahead, the soulful considerations which are spelled out in so many great religious teachings are of worth and value to guide a person in soulfulness of relationships.  It is one of the unfortunate curses of our modern times that we don’t take soul in man seriously, and that at the same time we reject the notion that there might be something to the deeper choices of the soul, something which might be comprehended were we to open our eyes and choose to see clearly that it is important not to ignore soulfulness in relationships.

The crux of the issue is really gambling with your future by risking your heart in a soulful search for perfection in relationships; while the truth is, it isn’t possible.  Consider that were a person perfect, which none are, they would be able to satisfy every single demand of your soul; think about that one, because at that point, you’d find that your soul was full, but it would be a pretty safe bet, theirs wouldn’t be?  On the other hand consider the imperfections of those who you form relationships with and how the quirky nature of who they are is often the most fun aspects of why we want to associate with them?  As a lifelong rooter for the underdog it is my pleasure to choose to associate with those who are battling long odds.  My gamble is that they will win and my heart felt relationship will be well placed?

There is a hard truth to selfishness in gambling with relationships that is often soulfully renounced as unworthy of consideration, it is this; those who you grow the closest to  are the very ones who will have the ability to make you feel hurt.  If you do not care that deeply for the other person, then they have a very limited ability to put your heart in a state of hurt; so, little is at risk.  Gambling under such conditions is hardly a gamble at all, you aren’t risking much, and conversely, you won’t have much to win, or much to lose.  But when you put your heart out there and it gets stomped on, that, hurts; and that hurt, which feels like a big empty hole in your soul, that hurt, doesn’t go away easy and isn’t easily dealt with.  This is the hard truth to gambling with your heart, you may not come out with a winning hand, and so, my sense is, if you are going to gamble this way, be prepared for that.

Why would anyone deliberately hurt another?  This is, again, a classic question, it is certain that there are people who do hurt other people, sometimes, it’s without intent; the husband who forgets an important date to the wife; and if such hurts are not often repeated, a person can accept them as being inadvertent.  But when a person continues to forget important but small details, things which would be important to the other person, then the question must be asked, isn’t this deliberate?  From such a relationship it is very difficult to enlarge a meaningful and loving growth, one of the people in that relationship doesn’t matter, and if that person is you, then you’d better get yourself into another place, it’s not likely to change.  Those who are hurtful to others by inconsideration and dismissive behavior, do so, while justifying their own behavior as being correct, which means that you will likely never matter to them as much as they matter to you.  Such a situation is virtually beyond redemption, and if you are interested in maintaining your own worth as a person then perhaps you can curtail or modify the relational standing to protect your heart?  If you can’t, if that’s not possible then you may find yourself in a situation that is intolerable, at that point, it may make sense to choose the road, over the pain?

So we come to the age old two way street of love, knowing full well you may get hurt if you risk your heart, you know also you will remain lonely if you don’t.  In defense of the ones who have caused heart hurt in my life, the German Friedrich Nietzsche said “that which does not kill me, only makes me stronger.”