People think about love and relationships like it’s a balance between what both get to do and what both want to do. We can look at that problem as whether to Sync drive or Co drive the vehicle of relationship.
Sync driving is like driving a car with two steering wheels, Co driving is like a single driver car, to be driven by two people taking shifts.
Former would mean that at any given point there are two minds driving in sync and we’re relying on all other circumstances to remain constant to prevent the drivers from thinking differently any second and boom! While Co driving does not gaurentee a smooth sailing throughout as it often happens that the person driving the car for too long may be taken for granted by the other partner which could in turn lead to problems.
When the balance of the relationship is threatened, couples have one of two ways to decide, Sync driving or Co driving. In the first choice, they both do as they fit without interference in each other’s business. It happens usually in the case of choosing a career where both patterns persue their respective careers without much say of the other partner, While one may argue that everyone has a right to be selfish if they see fit. Thinking about it another way would be to look after oneself in any given situation.
On the other hand, Co driving is when the couples adapt each other’s ambitions and goals as their combined ambition and goal. They don’t think about giving up something or doing something for the other as a compromise but rather as a personal responsibility not towards their partners but towards their relationship. It usually happenes among couples when children are involved, they both don’t raise their children for themselves or for the other person but for the relationship. It requires a certain level of faith and dependability on both sides.
Since we exist in space and time, it is important to look at both the journey and the destination. As journey is the time we spend with our partner and destination is the state of the relationship at that point. Looking at it that way, to strike a balance in the relationship, in moment of decision, couples could either decide to ease the situation at that point in time by choosing to Sync drive hence giving both an experience of the journey at the same time, or they could decide to Co drive and ensure they reach the destination. This choice usually depends on what you value more at that point in time, is it the journey that matters more, or is the destination.
There’s one more way to look at it, it’s also about the way it would end. Sync driving usually means the car drives with both the drivers together or it doesn’t drive at all, there’s no way only one can drive.
To Co drive a car would mean to completely rely on the other partner to keep in mind the destination and the journey. Since faith is only a limited currency for we can have only so much faith in someone before we don’t, faith like any other currency, can be mined by being dependable. The upside to Co driving is the option to get out without completely stoping the other’s ride, to break up without doing any harm to the other partner.
In the end, we should enjoy the pleasures of being in love and relationships but not forget the greater power of love and relationships that helps ussustain and thrive in this world and in life. For it’s always better to have someone by your side in the perils of life to relive your pain and to give you strength. Loving means to have someone worth living and dying for but it also means to means to have someone to make something together, worth living and dying for.
Just saying 