Partnerships: without real mutual support, I'm out!
No human being was born to live alone, and we know that one of the things that makes people most ill is social isolation, the lack of company. Therefore, we all need relationships in the most diverse areas: emotional, work, family, etc.
It turns out that bad relationships also harm and make people ill, which is why “better badly accompanied than alone” is a bad option, since negative company can make any situation worse, whether in body, mind or even spirit. And the health of all of us depends on well-being in these three fundamental areas.
Therefore, ideally, most of the relationships in your life, apart from those in which you are helping someone in dire need, should be partnerships: positive and productive for both parties involved, who are actively seeking the best for themselves and their partners.
Partnership, therefore, is symbiosis: everyone involved profits from mutual help and strives to obtain and provide it; in the final analysis, real partnership is doing good for everyone involved and thus naturally obtaining good. Let's look at what partnership is not:
- Partner-Predator: wants to benefit himself necessarily at the expense of the “partner” (or even extermination) of the “prey” - it's that person or company that offers an apparently beneficial partnership for you, but in fact, if you don't take care of yourself, ends up leaving you worse off and doesn't even bother to ruin you.
- Partner-Parasite: offers worlds and funds and only brings any benefit when you can offer something in return “immediately”. When you go through difficulties and no longer have anything to offer, you lose the “support”, which was really just profit sharing and never included cooperation in the “losses and difficulties”.
When you establish and maintain bad partners in your life, not only do you end up without resources, time and energy, but you also find it difficult to obtain them: projects carried out together work little or not at all, or the results don't last very long. That's why part of life's wisdom is to look for good partners and strengthen real partnerships.
Let's understand, however, that even good partners go through better and worse periods, of difficulties and periods when they are in a position to help in certain areas, with ups and downs, as is natural in human life. And real partners know how to contemplate this and exercise understanding, something that is even easier when the partnership is between real Christians, practitioners of Jesus' teachings. Also because partners know that they want to be partners for life (after all, it's hard to find good partners, right? Better to keep them, then) and not just for a short period of time or for one-off projects.
In 2016, I sought to nurture good partnerships in all aspects and to exercise understanding and tolerance towards unforeseen events and life's occurrences; and I certainly demanded the same from my real partners in these temporary situations. I apologize for any shortcomings and reiterate that any partner to whom I owe something, any reparation whatsoever, will be made good, as the good person that I am; and since for me “a mission given is a mission accomplished”, any commitment made will be duly repaid as soon as possible! But this is where the difference lies, since it's the difficulties that reveal the real character of the partnerships in our lives (people show who they really are, under stress...) - everyone will receive “what is due and fair”, but only the really good partnerships will remain for 2017 and beyond, strictly following the Universe's Law of Attunement: we attract what we emit, we receive from life what we give to it.
After all, anyone who hasn't suffered with me in battle doesn't deserve to be by my side in victory. Pure justice, no? We always reap what we sow, and life has its ups and downs. I hope that your behavior guarantees you the right support when life takes a turn for the worse.
A good existence for all of us, maintaining only worthwhile partnerships, under God's blessings! For the rest, may He exercise his Justice and Mercy.
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