To Be Faithful to Your Longing

To live in such a hospitable way brings many challenges. In marriage or with a life’s partner, it demands trust and flexibility in the commitment. Many relationships die quietly soon after the initial commitment. They lose their passion and adventure. The relationship becomes an arrangement. This often happens because the couple renege on a plurality of other friendships as central to their lives. Even though you have one anam-cara, one to whom you are committed, one who reaches you where no one else can or will, this person cannot become the absolute mirror for your life. To expect any one individual to satisfy your life-longing is a completely unjust demand. No one could live up to that expectation. The self is not singular. There are many selves within the one individual. Different friends awaken and reach different selves within you. Different gifts and different challenges come through your different friendships. To hold the borders of your commitment open allows you to give and receive from others without necessarily endangering the sacredness of your anam-cara bond. In fact, it can enrich and deepen the primordial and permanent intimacy between you. To live with this porousness can at times lead to ambivalence, but with discernment and integrity that need not become destructive. This art of living is vital in the workplace. This porousness often allows the alternative light to come through so that you do not have a blind faith in the system. You can still work committedly and creatively and yet recognize the surrounding functionalism and refrain from giving yourself totally and making yourself permanently vulnerable.