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Bookshelves are crammed with books on the different types and aspects of relationships, articles abound with advice on how to make relationships happier and
more successful, the internet is teeming with information by well intended writers seeking to promote the benefits of relationships in our lives.

Extraordinary relationships are those in which the participants continually grow and contribute to themselves, the relationship, and each other. Without
doubt, our human relationships with others contribute the majority of happiness and unhappiness we experience in our lives. For every happy or
unhappy experience you will have, there will usually be another person involved, or the lack of another person or persons in a significant area of your
life to influence the degree of happiness you enjoy.

In this chapter then, we will look at some of the different elements within the relationships we attract, and some of the considerations that have a positive or
negative impact on our happiness.

HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

By their very nature, relationships are ALL personal, because they involve individual human traits, strengths, weaknesses, positive attributes and negative
flaws. Relationships can be a joy or a drain, depending on the individuals and their respective personas. There is no absolute panacea for perfect relationships,
no one set of answers to each problem that would result in perfection. In fact I would go as far as to say that a relationship without challenges, without
imperfections, provides no opportunity for essential human growth. It is a basic law of nature that says that anything that is no longer growing is dying. The
very best human relationships, those that have the best chance of survival, are those that have faced and overcome difficult situations together in a spirit of
harmonious agreement and co-operation. These relationships have benefited from the growth experiences they have shared and the participants know that they
can deal honestly with individual and shared issues in the future.

Because there will never be such an entity as a perfect human being, there will never be a perfect relationship. I am not suggesting that we should rip apart
happily acceptable relationships looking for faults that don’t exist. Disagreement and conflict are a natural part of our evolutionary process. We learn little if
anything from experiences that go absolutely perfectly, although we should enjoy and savour them when they do occur. Our real growth occurs when conflict
arises and whilst respecting the feelings, opinion and thoughts of the other, we are able to learn and grow through acceptance of another point of view, even if
we disagree with it. Acceptance of another point of view does not necessarily mean you agree with it, acceptance provides the atmosphere for growth.

As we have discovered in the human needs chapter, individual human growth is essential to our human development, and nowhere is there a greater opportunity
for human growth than in the relationships we have with others.

The single most valuable thing to remember about relationships you enjoy, is that they contain YOU.

The relationships that bring us most fulfilment and genuine happiness are those where we are truly free to be our authentic selves, the authentic self Page283
that doesn’t have to pretend, tell lies, or wear masks.