We often see that out of the two kids at home, one is more responsible and accommodating while the other is more stubborn and bullies. The first one is often expected to adjust most of the time so that there is peace at home. That takes place almost everywhere. The one who grows bears the burden. In a family, if one child works hard and gets a good job, he needs to support the other child. If few citizens of the country work hard and become richer, they have to pay more taxes in a so-called progressive tax system. In a relationship, the one who has grown psychologically has to understand the other partner to make the relationship work. Is there a burden of the growth?
I feel that this has many different aspects that require in-depth examination. First of all, we need to examine the give and take in such situations. The giver in such a situation gets validation from the society of being good and the taker gets the care or other material benefit. The giver becomes a hero in the eyes of society and he is respected. Sometimes, the giver also gets control. He makes the decisions for the family and by making the decisions for the family, sometimes he manipulates certain decisions to his comfort and pleasure. Sometimes, the giver exploits and manipulates the takers so that the takers continue to be takers. On the other hand, sometimes, the takers manipulate the givers by giving them undue and excessive appreciation. They manipulate the giver by making him more and more addicted to the social validation and slowly in the process start threatening the givers by withdrawing their validation. They start playing the victim card in society so that the entire society may criticize the givers and the givers under pressure start providing again.
We can easily see that this game of give and take is very difficult to remain balanced and often tilt either in the favour of the giver or the taker, depending upon their psychological strengths. The one who is more sensitive tends to lose the game and the more insensitive one is generally the winner of this psychological game. Whatever the result, this entire arrangement of give-and-take is based on the inner deficiencies of both the giver and the taker. The giver seeks completion in the validation, while the taker seeks completion in the possession of the materialistic objects. We need to examine whether this give and take can ever make either the giver or the taker complete. The more the giver provides the more he will be full of pride and the more he would like to be a giver. The more the taker takes, the more dependent he will become on the giver and the more he will feel deficient. In the process, both the giver and the taker are getting fixated on "pride of giving" and "ease of taking" respectively, and therefore both are moving away from their natural state of contentment. In fact, both are givers and both are takers in different ways.
There may be three different ways of dealing with the situation. First is appeasement whereby both the giver and taker keep appeasing each other. The giver keeps proving whatever the taker needs and the taker keeps validating the giver and continues to be controlled by the giver. This will make the giver more and more fixated on the social validation and the taker more and more fixated on the materialistic demands. Sooner or later the game of expectation will begin. Both will have expectations from each other and one or both the parties will feel sooner or later that the other party is not reasonable in meeting its expectations that's where psychological wars start and blame, victimhood, bullying, and much more psychological warfare are used in this battle. Thus, the appeasement way does not work in the long run because it makes both parties dependent.
The second way out is enablement. If the giver and the taker may be enabled by each other rather than making them dependent. The giver understands that the taker needs a material object such as money. He recognizes the need of the taker and accordingly helps the taker develop skills or invests seed capital in a venture to be set up by the taker. Similarly, the taker recognizes that the giver needs social approval. He understands that the giver will be able to get social validation by serving the greater cause of society and accordingly motivates the giver to work for a larger social cause. That makes both of them independent of each other and improves their satisfaction manifold.
The best way is the path of completion whereby the giver and the taker both realize that whatever they seek in the outer world is just a reflection of their inner completion and they start working on their inner world. As they connect to their inner world, their external needs drop and the giver no longer needs the social validation and the taker no longer needs the material objects. In that inner state of completion, both the giver and taker just drop their seeking of the external world and become complete inside. That just requires awareness in each moment. As we grow aware of the inner world, we realize that all external and mental objects are quite temporary. Such awareness brings wisdom and with that wisdom, one drops the fixations to the temporary. Dropping the fixations frees the attention to connect to the inner world and that fills one with love and compassion. There is no longer any giver or taker. There remains only love and unconditional love.
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