"We fall in love with people and possessions only to be tortured by anxiety for them."
Great example: you buy a brand new vehicle and you park way the hell away from everyone else so no one dings your car. And you leave the store and find someone parked next to you. Immediately your heart skips a beat, your blood boils, and you walk nervously around your car looking for a scratch. A silly example, but you get the point. Well that was me in a relationship. I would get it just the way I wanted it and then my brain would take over- the "I"- the conciousness. I would pick at and pull apart all of my doubts and dwell on them instead of reveling in the insecurity and embracing the emotional challenge.
The human is divided into two parts. The "I," consciousness and the "me," the flesh or the body (the meat suit as Joe Rogan calls it).
"I fancies itself as a reasonable fellow, and is forever criticizing 'me' for its perversity- for having passions which get 'I' into trouble, for being so easily subject to painful and irritating diseases, for having organs to wear out, and for having appetites which can never be satisfied."
So this puts the human in conflict with himself. And this, is the heart of my problem. I had a quarterback coach in high school who used to tell me I suffered from 'paralysis through analysis.' As a sophomore I was slow with my reads and didn't understand the concept of throwing the ball to a window that your receiver WILL be in, even when you don't see him.
I read a quote today- "Grades don't measure intelligence. They measure obedience." I couldn't agree more. I was completely obedient in school. I did what I needed to do to get good grades. I learned- some. But I also lost some of my fight, and some of the passion for WHO I am. There were times I didn't know who I was because I was trying to be what everyone else expected me to be. Get good grades. Earn a scholarship. Get a well paying job. Well I've done all that and I'm not happy. I'm just here, paying bills, lifting weights, and writing in my training log. Over the past year this is all really coming to light for me. And it's liberating, but scary.
So I'm at conflict with myself, and I'm the referee. Great. In relationships I would want one thing- one person to share my time and experiences with.And then one little thing, a conversation or a comment from outside the relationship would get my wheels turning. I was a master at convincing myself that 'now I do not want this person in my life' or 'this person is not right for me.' But I was so conflicted that NOW I'm thinking I'm wrong and I should go with my initial feelings. For lack of a better term- I'm emotionally retarded.
Every relationship will change. The parties involved are dynamic and change is inevitable.
"For change is not merely a force of destruction. Every form is really a pattern of movement....Life and death are not two opposed forces; they are simply two ways of looking at the same force, for the movement of change is as much the builder as the destroyer."
So "I, not understanding that it too is part of the stream of change, will try to make sense of the world and experience by attempting to fix it."
I've tried to fix so many relationships that shouldn't have been fixed. So many that it makes my head spin. It was just what I did- the pattern I grooved for myself.
"Struggle as we may, 'fixing' will never make sense out of change. The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."
I have nothing more to add. You have to embrace change in all aspects of your life.