Never Get Complacent in Your Relationships

               Never Get Complacent in Your Relationships

Complacency is a killer of progression. By definition complacency is a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievements. Does that sound like a happy state of mind to be in? When we become complacent with our relationships whether they are intimate, personal, or professional we stop truly paying attention to them. If you were to stop watering a flower it would stop growing, if you were to stop feeding your pets they would die, and if you stop nourishing your relationships they will fade away.

Connections make the world go around. Unless you connect with a lover, children cannot be born, in order to get that promotion at work you have to show value, and in order to be a good friend you have to be there for them when they are in need and vice versa. Complacency takes all of that away. We stop trying to make our loved ones feel true love and things become this mundane routine, we do the bare bones minimum at work because we dread being there, we don’t call or hang out with friends because we have excuses as to why you can’t connect.

When we are young it is easy to not be complacent because we are forced into situations in which we must grow one way or another. Hurled in the school systems and being placed around hundreds of different personalities, given new learning challenges each day, and also having mentors in place to guide us along that journey. Doing extra circular activities such as clubs, picking friends to talk to and bond with on some level, and then going home to the family that has completely different ways of looking at you and bonding with you. It kind of keeps the brain flexible by switching in and out of situational experiences. Once college is over then we are thrusted into to the work world and things become a little less exciting. We forget to find extra activities to do after work besides going to eat or drink, we lose contact with our families or replace them with the ones we have made instead of adding them on, and we lose contact with the people we called friends for so long because we are just too busy trying to make ends meet and pay off our mortgage.

It doesn’t have to be that way and I truly think that time management and team building skills some of the most important skills to learn. With social media being around it is easier than ever to stay connected with friends and family. We have to just use the power for good and not evil. We can start online hangouts to video chat with old friends and network resources, take up cooking classes with your spouse which not only brings you guys together but also ensures that someone in the house knows how to cook, and we can go camping with our kids to get them outdoors more. Plan vacations, and finances to meet the life goals that we set for ourselves. Become more present in our own lives and our relationships as well. Bring different nutritional snacks to work, remember your co-workers and boss’s birthdays, and always strive to make everyone’s job easier. That can simply start with having a smile on your face each morning. So, tell do you want to stand still in your life or do you want to be actively present? If your answer is active then I suggest to never get complacent in your relationships.

-Keith Herbin