Ambiguity in relationships
The basic principle of unconditionality is the creation of ambiguity and limiting constraints. Talking about something puts constraints on it because in the future what you have said about something has to align itself with what it does. The reality is that truth is stranger than fiction. The truth about something or someone, is sometimes the furthest away from what we would imagine. How many times have you had your best friends surprise you in ways you never expected? Or how many times have you had to reevaluate your world because a belief you had turned out to be something completely different than that which you firmly believed? Well, life is like that. The best way you can build relationships and coexist with the environment is by taking it as it comes.
Ambiguity is one way of making sure that you are never constraining a person who you are dealing with or that you are not infringing on their plans. When you keep things ambiguous, it's easy to change.
Confirming Arrangements
One way to make the most advantage of ambiguity is by confirming and making people stick to the arrangements they have made. If you did make an arrangement or an agreement with someone, keep them to it and make them follow through with it. This will make sure that you will be taken seriously. This of course has its own limitations. Nobody wants to be serious. You want to be taken seriously, but you don't want to be taken as serious.
When dealing with a divorce, it is your responsibility to insist on the relationship in a more serious tone than you are in the mood for to really show that you care about something greater than yourself. If you partner threatens a divorce or divorces you, and you let them go ahead with it, or even encourage the separation, to save face, you are effectively demonstrating that you care more about your ego than you do about the relationship when you first made the vows. We think we are going to save our ego and feel better, but we end up feeling worse and worse because we never see what really matters which is the promise and the relationship.
Being serious for when you have leverage and power over unimportant things. Think about this. Everybody wants to be takes seriously. Everybody wants to know that if they ask somebody to do something, they'll do it and put the sufficient commitment in it to follow it through to completion. But does anybody want to be serious? No. Would anyone want to live in a world where everything is taken seriously, predictable and exactly as expected? Everybody wants unexpectancy, fun, unpredictability. As soon as something becomes predictable, we take it for granted. Having things unpredictable is what creates life and opportunity.
Bosses are usually seen as serious and strict, but is you ask the boss themselves whether they want to be serious, they'll tell you no. Everybody will tell you that they just want to be nice and fair to everyone.
Being serious is for exercising leverage over unimportant things. No matter how important something is, as soon as you take it seriously, it will not come out. Or you will have to go to great lengths to achieve it, after which point you will find out that what you thought was that important wasn't that important after all. Being serious is thus not meant for anything that really is serious and important to you. The purpose of getting people to take you seriously is achieved by getting them to do trivial simple unimportant things to ascertain your position. It is only the position itself that really matters.
Anything that really is important to you, is meant to be left unambiguous and undefined. People will only do something when they are having fun anyway, and people have fun when things are unexpected.
We create ambiguity in relationships not to create uncertainty, but to show that that it is not for us or our own benefits we're doing it for. Incidentally, this is the only time we benefit.
The basic principle of unconditionality is the creation of ambiguity and limiting constraints. Talking about something puts constraints on it because in the future what you have said about something has to align itself with what it does. The reality is that truth is stranger than fiction. The truth about something or someone, is sometimes the furthest away from what we would imagine. How many times have you had your best friends surprise you in ways you never expected? Or how many times have you had to reevaluate your world because a belief you had turned out to be something completely different than that which you firmly believed? Well, life is like that. The best way you can build relationships and coexist with the environment is by taking it as it comes.
Ambiguity is one way of making sure that you are never constraining a person who you are dealing with or that you are not infringing on their plans. When you keep things ambiguous, it's easy to change.
Confirming Arrangements
One way to make the most advantage of ambiguity is by confirming and making people stick to the arrangements they have made. If you did make an arrangement or an agreement with someone, keep them to it and make them follow through with it. This will make sure that you will be taken seriously. This of course has its own limitations. Nobody wants to be serious. You want to be taken seriously, but you don't want to be taken as serious.
When dealing with a divorce, it is your responsibility to insist on the relationship in a more serious tone than you are in the mood for to really show that you care about something greater than yourself. If you partner threatens a divorce or divorces you, and you let them go ahead with it, or even encourage the separation, to save face, you are effectively demonstrating that you care more about your ego than you do about the relationship when you first made the vows. We think we are going to save our ego and feel better, but we end up feeling worse and worse because we never see what really matters which is the promise and the relationship.
Being serious for when you have leverage and power over unimportant things. Think about this. Everybody wants to be takes seriously. Everybody wants to know that if they ask somebody to do something, they'll do it and put the sufficient commitment in it to follow it through to completion. But does anybody want to be serious? No. Would anyone want to live in a world where everything is taken seriously, predictable and exactly as expected? Everybody wants unexpectancy, fun, unpredictability. As soon as something becomes predictable, we take it for granted. Having things unpredictable is what creates life and opportunity.
Bosses are usually seen as serious and strict, but is you ask the boss themselves whether they want to be serious, they'll tell you no. Everybody will tell you that they just want to be nice and fair to everyone.
Being serious is for exercising leverage over unimportant things. No matter how important something is, as soon as you take it seriously, it will not come out. Or you will have to go to great lengths to achieve it, after which point you will find out that what you thought was that important wasn't that important after all. Being serious is thus not meant for anything that really is serious and important to you. The purpose of getting people to take you seriously is achieved by getting them to do trivial simple unimportant things to ascertain your position. It is only the position itself that really matters.
Anything that really is important to you, is meant to be left unambiguous and undefined. People will only do something when they are having fun anyway, and people have fun when things are unexpected.
We create ambiguity in relationships not to create uncertainty, but to show that that it is not for us or our own benefits we're doing it for. Incidentally, this is the only time we benefit.