Thoughts on Relationships

I read something interesting in Reader's Digest last week while I was at the dentist's office waiting to get the last of my teeth drilled into. Apparently, something like 50% of Canadians are playing the weekly lottery, hoping that their winnings will provide them with the adequate funding necessary for retirement. That's an amazing number. What's more amazing is the following: if a Canadian took the $4.00 they spent each week on a lottery ticket and invested it into a low-risk stock portfolio or into a high-interest RRSP for, say, 30 years, they would have close to ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars saved up by the time they retire.

That's probably more than any of them are going to win on the lottery.

It got me thinking about relationships. A lot of people I know, myself included, believe in 'soulmates' - that one person who is so insanely perfect for us that God himself must have decided that they were the one. So we're all sitting around, waiting for our proverbial love-of-a-lifetime to come into our lives and sweep us off our feet... sort of the same way someone might buy a lottery ticket, waiting for the win of a life time to take care of them for the rest of their life.

But what if we took what we had instead; our not-necessarily-perfect, but loving, smart and kind significant others, and invested in them. Took the time we spent waiting around for Mr.Perfect and dedicated it into our Mr.Imperfect. A small investment - a card written, a gift purchased, a back rub at the end of a long day, or even just simple words- over a period of 30 years ... well, you might get your soulmate after all.

Ultimately, I believe that a life-long monogamous relationship doesn't exist between two people who are a perfect match, or who were 'destined' to be together, but two people who (despite their flaws and imperfect edges) love each other enough to commit to the investment. People who will put in the time and the effort, week after week, to make it work. I think that you can create the perfect relationship slowly, and that each time you listen instead of making an assumption or aim to be kind instead of being right, or do something for the other person without expecting anything in return ... well, you'll be a rich man (or woman) indeed. Eventually.