DailyJim: Is it really love if there’s no conflict?

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. Today is Wednesday, January 29th, 2025. Topic for today, is it really love if there's no conflict?

So, talking with different friends about romantic relationships and reflecting on the ones that I've been in the past and just thinking about, you know, what's, what's the future hold for me?

And yeah, I just, I think I grew up with the, the impression that love or marriage or, um, any type of, uh, committed long-term, uh, romantic relationship or relationship in general just doesn't have a lot of conflict.

I didn't see my parents fight very often.

And I think, you know, as I got older, I realized this was intentional. My mom said something about how they intentionally chose not to show anger in front of the kids, show them fighting in front of the kids. I was like, huh? Based on her experiences growing up, seeing her mom and her dad fight, and again, somewhat, not super violent, but somewhat, a little bit violent. And I think her mom threw a cast iron skillet at, I think my grandma threw it at my grandpa. I think missed though, but still. So I think seeing that growing up, she decided, okay, let's not show this in the conflict. But I think what the lesson I learned is that love doesn't have conflict.

If there's conflict, it's not love.

And I think this is so far from the truth. I don't know, though, because I think a lot of times we reflect on love and we think falling in love with somebody is having the same values, having the same direction in life, having the same hobbies, having the same preferences, just having so much that's in common.

But if we have everything in common, maybe there's not that much conflict. And is it really love or is it maybe more compatibility or likeness? Maybe likeness instead of loveness.

And I think what I've learned over the last few months especially is that I think love is about being able to keep fighting and never giving up on the other person despite the conflicts.

And not expecting there to be no conflict.

And I think that's where, I think a lot of us are actually trying to have peaceful relationships. We're not trying to have loving relationships because peaceful relationships for me are the absence of conflict. But peaceful relationships in my experience have been rather dull, dreary, empty, kind of numb.

And maybe other people choose that because maybe that's what they choose in life. But I choose to feel a lot, to be alive, to be exuberant.

And I think often that comes from conflict. And sometimes when we're with somebody who...

Is more obviously different than us, in many ways, not just physically looking, but you know, in just many ways and personality and backgrounds and stuff like this, then it's almost coming into it knowing that there's going to be conflict. Maybe this is something that I learned from intercultural communication back in the day when I switched my focus from electrical engineering to that, is that intercultural communication, there's always conflict. But sometimes there's just confusion over the similar word, you know, bring versus send or arm in Swahili, arm and hand are the same words, mkono. So it goes from the shoulder all the way down to the tip of the fingers. That's one word, mkono. And so when you talk to somebody who's a native Swahili speaker, they often in English won't differentiate between arm and hand, or if they do, they mix it up. I was like, no, wait, where? Your arm, my arm hurts. I'm like, but in your hand?

And so I think when we know that there's difference, we are more aware of the conflicts. When we think there's similarity, we may overlook the conflicts and think there are no conflicts or hope that there are no conflicts. So I don't know, I'm just really reflecting on this and how people choose who they want to date and who they want to marry and how they deal with the conflicts or lack of conflicts and whether we want people who are more similar to us or different than us and the pros and cons, benefits, whatever you want to call them, just drawbacks from things like this.

Yeah, just thinking that maybe love requires conflict, admitting that there's conflict, because there's always conflict there. Even two people who seem so similar, they're not going to have the exact same backgrounds. Even two siblings don't have the exact same backgrounds. Even identical twins don't have the exact same backgrounds, because maybe they've had it, you know, things happen at different times in different places, and especially as they grow older, then they interact with different people at different times, different teachers, different students, different friends, etc., etc. So there's no exact same experience. There's always, It's always conflicting experiences and opinions and perspectives and feelings and I think sometimes when the differences are more obvious, then maybe we are more prepared or...

Maybe we, yeah, more prepared or more aware that conflicts will happen. Therefore, yeah, more ready to take on the challenge. Whereas I think sometimes when we expect similarities to be so pervasive, then we may not want to admit that there's conflict or we may not see it coming.

One of the examples I always use is that there's conflict, even if you speak the same language, because for me, maybe the word vacation means one thing and to a partner, it means a different thing. So maybe for me, vacation means going, relaxing on the beach and just sitting there. Maybe for a partner, it means going to see the landmarks in Paris or something like this. And so I say, let's go on vacation. They're like, vacation, what do you mean? This isn't vacation.

So this can be a fight with my sister or my family members, right? Because we have different perspectives on these things. So just to remind and maybe reflect a little more on.

Maybe dispelling the myth that we have to have so much compatibility for love, and maybe there's actually more love in the conflict and the differences, or there can be at least, if people are willing to work through and fight through it instead of just give up. So I don't know. What do you all think about that? Um, unfortunately the forum's down right now because I don't have the money to pay the forum, uh, bill. So hopefully I'll get that in the next couple of weeks and get that up before they delete the server. But, uh, yeah. So if you're curious about that and you would like to help check out leadingheartsfund.com or leadinghearts.fund. Um, and you can learn more about this new initiative, this new focus of mine, where it's the idea of who do we want to have financial power in the world. Ideally, I would say we want it to go to those who have really open hearts and are trying to open up the hearts of so many others and lead us towards more love and unity in the world. So if you like that concept, please check it out. You can support me through there and then you can look at a couple other people that I've just put there, but it's more about the general philosophy and concept than it is about being a platform and directory. But yeah, talk to you all tomorrow. Thank you.