"Because We Belong to Each Other."

I took the title of this post from the last line of a story on NPR this morning.  The story was about the efforts of a woman named Priya Parker, whose book is called The Art of Gathering, to figure out how to make gatherings of people, usually at celebrations, deeper and more reflective.  She focused on the idea of constructing topics of toasts made, and how to encourage gatherers to make them more incisive, and appreciative.  She ended her NPR discussion as I said, with the quote that is the title of this post.

And this concept is critically important, and not to be forgotten.  Sometimes, we belong to each other by accident, like the families, or cultures, or societies or countries into which we happened to have been born.  But mostly, we choose our surroundings, and the people in them.

I do a certain amount of couples or marriage counseling, and one theme that is never out of focus is that the people involved chose each other, from among many possible choices.  Sure, they're complaining about each other now (that's why they're seeing me), but however long ago it was, they wanted, and preferred, each other.  The time bomb in these situations is that everyone in the world has neuroses, and every choice contains a conflict.  So, the basis for complaint now actually contains the reason for having chosen the person in the first place.  For example, "So-and-so is so controlling, and ignores my suggestions."  "What attracted you to so-and-so when you met and were getting to know each other?"  "So-and-so is so well-organized and self-assured."  There are loads of examples, but they all distill into personal and internal conflicts like that.

The same can be said for things like where we choose to live.  If we consider, say, Biscayne Park, no one is forced to live here.  We all chose it, and each of us for our reasons.  And as small as is Biscayne Park, each of us chose one part, or one street, or one house, instead of another.  "I'm dissatisfied with my house.  It's too small, or plain, or on too small a lot, or on too busy a street."  "How did you choose that particular house?"  "I could afford it much better than I could a larger, fancier, more up-to-date house, on a bigger lot, and a quieter street or cul-de-sac."  It's the same thing as the relationship complaints and conflicts.

But having made these choices, we commit -- to a place and to each other.  They're not commitments that can't be reconsidered, or changed, or abandoned.  But until we conclude that we've somehow made a mistake, and should save ourselves from it, we do belong to each other, and to the setting or place that contains us.  And our continued belonging is not without the conflicts it contained when we first made the choice.  We just have to remember what we intended to gain from this choice, and what we agreed to sacrifice to make it.

Now, it's fair to say that not every situation in which a choice is made was fully evolved, as it is when we become dissatisfied, when we made the choice.  "S/he wasn't a drug addict when I met her/him, but s/he is now, and I can't live like that."  "Biscayne Park didn't use to be directly under the flight pattern from MIA, but the flight pattern was recently changed, and BP is under it now, and I can't live like that."  Then, you make changes, or you appeal to someone else to make one.

But absent changes like that, we belong to each other, because we chose to belong to each other, for our conflicted reasons, and it's in our interest to find the value in belonging.