by Max | Jan 4, 2024 | Featured, Relationships
I recently saw the movie “Past Lives” on a plane. What an incredibly beautiful film. It made me think about past loves that I have, and how different my life could have turned out.
It follows a multi-decade story of a woman who leaves Korea and her childhood sweetheart, only to be reunited and separated with him a couple more times. The woman gets married to an American man, but the story chronicles this feeling of ‘what if’ with her childhood sweetheart.
It’s a feeling I think we’re all familiar with. Wondering how different our lives could be. Especially when it comes to love it can be quite powerful and painful. I try to describe it as feelings of nostalgia dripping with longing.
Spoiler (sorry): At the end, the woman’s current partner, who is not her past love, comforted her as she cried about the pain of longing and wondering ‘what if’ she had instead gone with her childhood sweetheart.
What’s beautiful about this moment is that the current partner, Arthur, loves her and supports her in her pain and longing. How incredibly mature. It’s what we do as adults – we choose and decide on our partnerships and companions. It isn’t something necessarily dictated by circumstance and hormones.
The loves we had when we were young were so hormone-heavy and intense. Of course when we miss them and think about them it digs deep into our soul. We felt alive. Romantic. Raw.
This movie was incredible because it dug those feelings up for me. It painted a perfect picture of what those feelings are like.
And I was just left in awe of the story teller and filmmaker’s art – how they can tell a story so perfectly that it evokes such a nuanced feeling from me. That’s what art in all forms is all about. The feelings it evokes. Again I’m just in awe how talented someone can be to do that to some stranger watching their art.
The theme of the movie is about In-Yun. A concept in Korea, akin to divine providence that connects people across multiple lives, usually related to love. I’ve been fortunate to benefit from In-Yun. And my mind explodes thinking about how many wonderful people and experiences I’m connected to that have brought me exactly here to this little cafe somewhere, writing this.
by Max | Oct 23, 2023 | Mindset, Relationships
It’s a hard time right now, and I’ve been doomscrolling for weeks thinking about Israel, Gaza and hatred in the West.
I’ve been affected by my good habits suffering, and excused return of some bad habits.
Fortunately, I haven’t become an asshole, or so I think.
But someone in my life has – and I’ve been resentful about it for the last few weeks. They have always been kind of a nice asshole, but this person has a lot going on in their life. Family stress and job stress for them were already pretty strong, plus a heavy layer of PTSD. This person is equally pained by the events in Israel, so they’re quite stressed.
While I’ve been resenting this person for a few weeks now, I realized today that they must be really overwhelmed and feeling quite helpless. And I decided to have compassion for them and what they’re going through.
Compassion is such a powerful tool for peace. If everyone exercised it, the world would be a much better place.
I learned about compassion as my father was dying. We had a complicated relationship and missed the opportunity to deeply connect around that. I was forced to have compassion for him, largely after his death, if I wanted to have any meaningful evolution and closure in our relationship. I certainly wasn’t going to get anything from him!
Compassion takes away most of the power that other people’s words and actions have on us. It is the ultimate ego surrender. To have compassion for people who are harming you, or people that are being assholes to you, illuminates the humanity in that person. It connects your humanity with theirs, improving the world one understanding relationship at a time.
by Max | Aug 28, 2023 | Relationships
Relationships are really hard.
I have the hardest time with saying what’s on my mind. What’s bothering me about a person.
That behavior they do that has been going on for so long that it’s part of their codebase. How do I speak up about it and address it? How do you tell them to change?
Maybe it’ll embarass them, or make them feel insecure.
That’s the little behavior – what about the big point of view they hold on that massive topic? Or that they don’t care enough about something that’s really important to you?
How do you tell them that? How do you talk to them about it?
This stuff gives me a ton of anxiety, and I bottle it up and fall silent or behave weirdly. And that’s no good because people, your partner, your family, your friends – they can tell when you’re not yourself.
Talk to them.
Sure, that’s the best advice. But damn is it difficult to do. And it’s scary. Because what if they refuse to change. Or refuse to even acknowledge their behavior or how it makes you feel.
You’ll feel like a crazy person. But I’m sure there are things you do that drive them crazy. Or outlooks on life and other topics you hold that don’t gel with theirs. So it’s even? Everyone is their own brand of crazy? It’s compromise? It’s the acceptance and even the embrace of people’s peccadillos that help relationships forge onward.
But how do you know when something is a dealbreaker in a friendship or partnership? I find this impossible to know. Is it a feeling? Or something that other close relationships can help you see through their eyes? Or a therapist perhaps?
I do know that talking to the person, however uncomfortable and scary, is the way to go. The people you want in your life will hear you, respond lovingly and try to work towards a solution. And if you’re scared to talk to them because you think they won’t change, then it’s on you to decide how important the topic is to you. This is when it becomes difficult and perhaps is the reason you fear talking to them in the first place. You know they won’t change. Talking has confirmed it and now it’s back on you to decide how to proceed.
But you gotta do it. The only way out is through. Whether that’s with them or without them, the only way to get there is by talking to them.
Relationships are hard. Talk to them.
