Catharsis...

A lot of recent events have forced me to think about why we, as humans are sometimes the greatest barrier to our happiness. How we, ourselves hold the key to our own happiness, how we are the architects of each day of our life and the driver of each path we take. In our right state of mind, we are all enabled, sensible and thought out individuals well endowed with the capacity of taking decisions that should be taken. Why, then, given this advantage are we often our own biggest criminals?


I look around myself and see people I care for doing themselves grave injustice in their own decisions, and other than the standard 'pep' talk I can do nothing. After all, you can take the horse to the water, you cant make him drink. I see friends making compromises and sacrifices to keep transient relationships and fleeting feelings intact. While I understand its hard to let go - after all relationships come with a lot of desirable qualities - security, comfort, love etc. What I do not understand is why anyone would hold on to something simply because they're afraid to let go. Its about the 'What will I do without..' question that is plague. I say, why cant you ask yourself 'What am I doing with'?

Desire can take on morbid forms sometimes - its important to know when the line is breached. 'YOU' have to be the most important person in your life. If YOU dont respect yourself, NO ONE will! Putting one's foot down in light of maintaining self respect or sanity are not only acceptable, they are MUST. DO. IT. NOW.

Infidelity....

At what point, do you think, your partner starts cheating on you?

When you meet someone and you begin liking him/her. You become good friends. You begin liking the person quite a lot, then start flirting with him/her, then start fantasizing about him/her. Maybe one thing leads to another, you kiss each other and one day you end up in bed with that person. In all this, when would you say you actually start cheating on your partner? When you started flirting? Fantasizing? Or when you actually kissed or slept with this person?


I was of the opinion that it is cheating if you even cheat in thought. But when I had a conversation about this with a friend of mine, he said all a man would care about is if you kissed or slept with another man. Which is rather simple and leaves a lot of room for flirting. Today, while watching a TV program, J said something similar. In the TV program, a woman's (let's call her K) boyfriend tells her he had been with another woman in their apartment and almost slept with her but in the end didn't do so because he couldn't bear the thought of not having K in his life. K, at this point, storms off saying he should have thought about it before cheating on her. J immediately said "But he didn't cheat on her!!" while I was thinking "Really? Didn't he?"

Is this really a Mars V/s Venus case? Or is this a case of just different opinions, not necessarily defined or stereotyped by gender? What do you think? Would you believe that you cheated as soon as the first fantasy about the other person entered your head? Or would you think it isn't cheating unless you slept with him/her? What if it were your partner is flirting/ fantasizing/ kissing/ sleeping with a friend? At what point would their behavior hurt you?

I am still trying to make up my mind.