Happiness in Relationships

Spending more time with love ones

            It is very important to spend quality time with your love ones, but sometimes it is really difficult to make time, but we should try to make time. When I was younger I use to have more time than I do now with my  grandparents. Nowadays, visiting my grandparents once a week is hard. But I try to visit them or call them, just to let them know how I am doing and to see how they are doing. When it comes to our love ones whether it is our family, friends, romantic partners spending time is significant. By spending time together we are able to learn more about each other. By learning more things about each other we grow to create a stronger bond. And sometimes we just want "to share the events and thoughts and feelings in our lives" and spend time with them because we care (Shahar 111).

Cultivating vs. Finding

            Cultivating, is to improve, to work on, to make, to create better growth in whatever we may be working on such as in a relationship. By doing this it helps create an even stronger bond between the 2 couple, groups, etc. There is always something in a relationship that can grow, something that can be cultivated on. There is no finding, meaning that there is one person out there who is for everyone. If there was, there would not be any divorce or fighting. Everything would be like a fairytale, where the one looking for love ends up with the one right person and lives happily ever after, but there is no happily ever after. Because there is still more work to do, even if someone found their true love. They would have to start cultivating their relationship to have happiness.  

Sacrifice vs. Sharing

           

            Stated in the article Happiness in Relationships Tal Ben-Shahar, gives a really clear example of what sacrificing is. Sacrificing is something that a person gives up for their love ones. What the person is giving up could affect their core self. The example that was given was how a "woman permanently giving up work she loves and cannot find elsewhere so that her husband can take a job abroad-because if her work is fundamental to her core self, if it is part of her calling, then abandoning it is detrimental to her happiness" (Shahar 117). On the other hand, aside from sacrificing there is also sharing, like the saying "Sharing is Caring." I think that for someone to share something they care about the person they are sharing with. You can share your thoughts, or hopes, or dreams, or fears with the ones you love. By sharing your also letting the other person know how you feel, and that you are able to comfortably share with them a part of you. Just by sharing can bring happiness to both people.