:: patience ::

Reality sets in.
As the man's sneak preview of the teaching life comes to an end next week.
And when May arrives, he will be embarking on another journey; this time as a working man.
And in this field that we choose to serve, factors like conflicting schedule and ridiculous amount of workload may see us communicating less often or be physically absent most of the time.

A little readjustment to this change takes a lot of understanding.
And because our mind has been tuned in to believe that attention is what we need most from our partner (or else what is the point of being in a relationship?), we find it hard to grapple why sometimes we could not see effort being put in on our partner's part to initiate even short meet-ups.
The insecurity nagged. We then began to question our existence in our partners' life.
Am I not needed? If I'm not, why is he/she is still with me?

Effort, my friend - as it dawned to me, can be seen from different perspectives.
Correct me if I'm wrong but effort to most women simply means that wanting our respective loved ones to take time off from their busy schedules to spend quality, loving time together.
This is what we've been fighting for. Attention reserved only for us.
And there will be moments when we couldn't comprehend why our men could not even find a space to fit us in their schedules.

As I spoke to dad and from my experiences with male friends and colleagues, effort to men goes beyond spending that quality time together.
Effort means working very hard to provide a better life in the future for the one he will claim as a life partner.
This may not be a representation of the whole male population.
But to the men I knew, building that stability equates to effort and that this is the only way he can show how much he loves - how much he wants to be responsible for your happiness in the future. To them, the start may be rough but in the end, it will be a rewarding journey.

I was adamant on my definition of effort.
The man held on to his belief that we should begin with an end in mind.
We had a heated exchange on this issue.
Refusing to see from his viewpoint, I was imposing him my principle of relationship - that the objective is not so important as compared to the process.
Its a tangible and subjective topic to begin with.
To him, by having an objective, we inevitably will move along through the process.
But the no-purpose me who prefers to take each day as it is, thought that everyday we should build to creating that objective.

It leads to no solution. (especially if you know that both of you are stubborn-headed)
But as I reflected upon things that had happened to a good friend, I came to terms with the fact that I was not able to practice the greatest virtue of life; the art of patience.
I was thinking short-term happiness.
Since according to Dad, if you could not reach a partnership or understanding with your partner, then its pointless to even consider marriage because love has to come with stability - emotional, physical, financial.
Dad provoked my thought further by saying why should I be in a rush to demand daily meet-ups if I am confident enough to build a future with my prospective life partner - then he said, I can enjoy his presence everyday.

Though, the way people build their relationships may differ.
I think the essence of it all is to learn the meaning of patience.
We are so caught up with making efforts and used to working so hard for something (because society made us believe that if we don't work hard, we won't succeed) when all it takes is to do nothing.
For after all, even if we try too hard, we can't guarantee results.