Burdened: Riding Willing Horses To Death

Introduction: 

Welcome my friend, 

Thank God it is Friday. 

For us, this has come to mean spending this time here together, away from all other activities as we focus on picking at least one line to improve a thing or more in our lives.

So that when we part ways at the end of it, we'll think it to have been worth our time, even so, to immediately look forward to being here again next week. 

Truly, I do enjoy your company because in sharing these words I also hear them, so that I may learn to apply them. 

A healthy interaction of supporting each other to be better folks, one conversation at a time.

Discussion: 

To outrightly condemn someone for overburdening another with their own problems is to willfully, if not pretentiously, ignore the circumstances for which a person might be forced to depend on others. 

Every now and then, people find themselves in situations of accident, injuries, ill health, or even old age, such that they now have to completely lean on others for support. 

There is no shame in being this person, and on the other hand we should be humbled by the responsibilities of taking care of others, an honour that should be done with diligence and cheerfulness.

However, this isn't what this conversation is about as we'd instead be looking to understand relationships from the aspect of pushing all of its responsibilities to just one person.

■ Understanding Our Roles In A Relationship

All genuine relationships are founded on love and when we love someone, we want the best for them. 

For this reason we're willing to play certain roles in their lives as a way of practically showing these intentions according to our own capabilities.

These roles will include: 

▪︎ Companionship 

The first benefit of friendship is companionship as we find someone that we love enough to want to share our lives with them. 

When we avail time to each other to communicate, listen and discuss details of each other's lives; or to simply share the same space in healthy silence, we experience a satisfaction that can only come from special bonds. 

Companionship is the light that brightens out loneliness and anxiety because we feel the presence of another and the confidence that we're not alone. 

▪︎ Encouragement

To have a friend throw in kind words of upliftment and inspiration can be all the motivation we need in a particular time. 

To see that someone believes in us enough to want us to keep going is a source of strength in times of self doubt.

When we push each other to get on rather than quit, we encourage ourselves to demand more from life. 

▪︎ Support 

Friends come through for themselves when there's a need to be met offering financial assistance; as resources are pulled together to solve a problem that one person wouldn't have handled well alone. 

There's also support in the form of patronizing their respective businesses or pointing themselves to opportunities for growth and improvement. 

▪︎ Wise Counsel 

The advice of a wise friend can lead us to making a decision that will transform our lives positively, for the rest of it. 

Wise friends teach us how to manage our resources of time and energy so that we don't spend them on people and ventures that yield no positive returns but only take away from us. 

▪︎ Acts Of Service 

We show love to the ones we care about through random little acts that ease their stress or put a smile on their faces. 

When we step in to help out, we show that we want to lessen a load by sharing it. 

▪︎ Prayer 

When we pray for our friends we hand them over to the one that takes care of everything. 

We show that we want more for them beyond what our human limitations can ever do for them.

■ Abusing Our Privileges

Having gone through the various roles in a relationship, we can no longer say there isn't anyone that we're suited for. 

When we're in a person's life we can intentionally identify certain areas of it that we can contribute to, in order that what we share can exist in a healthy dynamic. 

This way one person doesn't feel burdened by the entire responsibilities of keeping the relationship going while the other becomes; 

▪︎ Entitled 

When we feel too deserving of our friend's resources to the point that it trumps the grace and understanding that we'd show them if they held back, then we've become entitled.

We're quick to forget the other numerous assistance that we got freely, simply because we've been turned down for requesting in a time and manner they couldn't meet up with; even if it was when we needed it the most. 

However, for us to readily respond with harsh judgment is being inconsiderate (where their hands are tied) or showing an unawareness that it's human nature to disappoint (where we may think all the conditions were right).

▪︎ Dependent 

To completely lean on a person for emotional, financial, or mental support especially at a time when they're not stable themselves is unhealthy and overwhelming. 

Also, we need to understand the right level of attention that we can get in a given time, without making an issue of it. 

When we have expectations of an unreasonable level of availability we demand to become the center of another's world which is selfish and unfair. 

▪︎ Negligent 

Since we already feel suited to the subdued role in the relationship, we can easily become insensitive to the needs of the other person.

It's also for this reason that we don't notice their discomfort at our demands and their gradual withdrawal from us until they can firmly enforce their boundaries completely. 

▪︎ Resentful 

Once we've overburdened the other person into disappearing from our lives, we become angry and sometimes bitter towards them.  

We're rightly annoyed that they walked away from us, while failing to acknowledge the role our selfishness, nonchalance and unrealistic expectations played in that. 

Nobody wants to be loved only for what they can do for us and this is how we make them feel when we react badly to when they don't. 

■ A True Friend 

The struggles in our relationships are due to human nature which is flawed in thinking and behaviour. 

When there is no understanding, tolerance, forgiveness and patience, a relationship will struggle to exist because we've not really done enough to build it. 

Here, we're reminded that it's our desire and intention to be together that allows us to willingly commit to working on ourselves as a way of improving the quality of our relationships knowing that it all starts from within. 

As we mature and heal we begin to rightly attract true friends having understood that not all that glitter is gold, and choosing our friends on the basis of substance not just mere attraction or ‘vibe’. 

Summary: 

The privilege of having that friend that will come running every time we say the word is something that not everyone will experience. 

When we become that friend to others we increase our chances of receiving the same, having sown it like a seed through the examples we've shown.

Good friends share the load of living through the difficulties of life with us but when they bend their backs to carry this weight we should be careful not to burden it to break. 

No mortal friend can be everything for us which is why we need God, the big friend that wants to be the perfect friend to us and our friends. 

Master Apprentice.

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