It doesn't matter what the other is being, doing, having, saying, wanting, demanding. It doesn't matter what the other is thinking, expecting, planning. It only matters what you are being in relationship to that.
Interpretation
Focus on your own actions and feelings rather than the expectations of others.
This quote emphasizes the importance of individual responsibility and self-awareness in relationships. It suggests that true fulfillment and understanding come from being mindful of one's own behaviors and emotions, rather than being swayed by external influences or the expectations of others. By prioritizing your own state of being, you can cultivate healthier and more authentic relationships.
In practice
During a seminar about self-improvement, you could use this quote to illustrate the importance of focusing on oneself.
What you hope, you will eventually believe. _x000D_ What you believe you will eventually know. What you know, you will eventually create. What you create, _x000D_ you will eventually experience. What you experience, _x000D_ you will eventually express. What you express, _x000D_ you will eventually become. _x000D_ This is the formula for all of life.
Fear and guilt are your only enemies. Love and awareness are your true friends. Do not confuse one with the other, for one will kill you, while the other gives you life.
Your whole life is a message. Every act is an act of self-definition . Everything you think, say and do sends a message about you.
Love lets go. Need holds on. This is the way you can tell the difference between need and love. Let go of expectation, let go of requirements and rules and regulations that you would impose on your loved ones.
When you find peace within, you also find that you can do without. This means simply that you no longer need the things of your outside world, and not needing is a great freedom.
Giving up is not the answer. Neither is giving in. Stand your ground. There is a way of doing that without having to be combative. There is a way of hanging on to your true self, and demonstrating it, without resorting to aggression. But giving up and giving in is not the way. Simply and quietly claiming your right to be You is the way.
Marriage made more sense when it was indissoluble. It's the woman trying to cope with the strains of a one-parent family who will suffer most from the relaxation of the divorce laws.
It is easier to tell a story of how people wound one another than of what binds them together.
When I was growing up as a young lesbian in the '50s, I looked in vain for books about my people. I did find some paperbacks with lurid covers in the local bus station, but they ended with the gay character's committing suicide, dying in a car crash, being sent to a mental hospital, or 'turning' heterosexual.
Marrying means, to grasp blindfolded into a sack hoping to find out an eel out of an assembly of snakes.
Band-Aids don't fix bullet holes. You say sorry just for show. You live like that, you live with ghosts.
Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
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