Page 81 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

How could I make my rules and requests more meaningful to us both? I began to

build my case for optimism. I realized that great relationships are built by
incidents like these. They are not built by theoretical conversations, but by
difficult experiences and what we learn and gain from them. So I decided to
drive a little while longer and let her wait inside. I was sure that by now her
sister had told her that I was out looking for her, so she was now the one pacing
and anxious. Let her sweat a little, I thought, while I continue to think things
through.

I continued to reflect upon my past relationship with Stephanie. One of the
great aspects of it was Stephanie’s honesty. She had always radiated a quiet and
confident kind of serenity about life, and found it easy to be honest with her own
feelings and honest with other people. Whenever there had been incidents with
other children, teachers, or other parents involved in some misunderstanding, I

could always count on Stephanie to tell me the truth. Asking her about what
happened always saved me a lot of time.

As I drove the dark neighborhood, I also ran through my happiest memories
of Stephanie as a little girl, how much I loved her and how proud I was of her
when I went to her concerts or talked to her teachers. I recalled the time in grade
school when I embarrassed her by asking her principal if he would consider re-
naming the school after her. (She had just won an academic award of some kind
and I was intoxicated with pride.)

Finally my mind was completely won over to the optimistic side. Thinking
about how I could use this gave me the idea that this incident could be made into
something bigger than it seemed—a new commitment to each other to keep

agreements and trust each other.

When I finally got home, I could see that she was scared. She tried to blame
the incident on her not having a watch. She wanted me to appreciate that,
somehow, she was a victim of the whole incident. I listened patiently and then I
told her I thought it was a much bigger deal than that. I talked about my
relationship with her and how I had cherished her truthfulness throughout her
childhood. I told her that I thought we might have lost all of that tonight. That
we might have to figure a way to start over.

“It’s not that big a deal,” she protested. But I told her that I thought it was a
very big deal, because it was all about our relationship and whether we were
going to keep agreements with each other. I told Stephanie I wanted her to be as
happy as she could possibly be, and the only way I could really help that happen