Unattached or Detached?

I am convinced that all change is change for the better. There is no such thing as "change for the worse." Change is the process of life itself, and that process could be called by the name "evolution." And evolution moves in only one direction: forward, and toward improvement. Besides, as they say, “A life lived by choice is a life of conscious action. A life lived by chance is a life of unconscious reaction.”

Emotional Intelligence is not developed at one go and then drop off. Because it is a lifelong symbiosis, and it is possible to keep getting better at it. Even when one would feel like they have mastered EI, the practice would remain important, I believe.

We were all asked in class about an aspect of our lives we would like to use our learnings from class as a guiding line to help our personhood grow. My answer then straddled over “attachment” and “expectations”. I am highly convinced that attachment in relationships are highly toxic and this because it breeds expectations. And expectations never contribute to happiness.

Expectations. That is one thing I truly should learn to fight off. The root cause of my trouble today is expectations, this in relationships essentially- be it with my parents, with my friends, with my relatives and my love interests. I expected things. I hoped that life would be a certain way- turned out that I was wrong in even hoping for those things. I have expected my parents to be more supportive in my career choices, I have expected my friends to give me proper advice, and most recently I have expected someone to give me a form of attention that the latter was not ready to give.

Being with people, accompanying them in life, participating in their lives, gives them a sense of: "I'm important to that person and he is keen on taking care of my well-being." Or, "I can rely on her for advice. She does care for me. She wants to be in my life." And these are what make relationships. It takes fighting to make a relationship, striving hard to invest the correct juices and make the perfect cocktail.

Relationships are about active investment, involvement, and genuine attention-giving. Passivity between lovers, parents, children, colleagues are plain unattractive. And this especially, in the glow of a new relationship! At this point, our expectations of bonding, sharing and connecting with each other are very high.

We are all wired because of evolution to search and find another human being with whom we develop an attachment. There is almost an instinct or rather a need to have someone to depend on, a loved one who can give reliable emotional connect and comfort.

But need creates fear of rejection and attachment breeds expectations. Perhaps my expectations, ironically, are high to believe that I might be able to one day raise about expectations itself. However, with as much understanding I have derived from EI classes, I feel that the real solution to this is to be able to shift from attachment to detachment.

[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"></v:stroke> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></v:f> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></v:f> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></v:f> </v:formulas> <v:path o:extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect"></v:path> <o:lock v:ext="edit" aspectratio="t"></o:lock> </v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_1" o:spid="_x0000_s1026" type="#_x0000_t75" style='position:absolute;left:0;text-align:left;margin-left:67.95pt; margin-top:130.5pt;width:459.4pt;height:256.85pt;z-index:-251658240; visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square;mso-width-percent:0; mso-height-percent:0;mso-wrap-distance-left:9pt;mso-wrap-distance-top:0; mso-wrap-distance-right:9pt;mso-wrap-distance-bottom:0; mso-position-horizontal:absolute;mso-position-horizontal-relative:page; mso-position-vertical:absolute;mso-position-vertical-relative:text; mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0;mso-width-relative:page; mso-height-relative:page'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\Users\Pawena\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.png" o:title="" croptop="5038f" cropbottom="11649f"></v:imagedata> <w:wrap type="tight" anchorx="page"></w:wrap> </v:shape><![endif][if !vml][endif]Because of this, I stayed awake from 1 a.m. till 7 a.m. on one of the many Fridays we have at our leisure here in Dubai and pondered on it all. I came to the realisation that there is a massive difference between “Detachment” and “Indifference”! To try distinguish between the nuances, I picked three different colours of sketch pens and made a comparison table between “Attachment”, “Indifference” and “Detachment”.

Hence, my plan of change is to move from “Attachment” to “Detachment” in the closest relationships in my life so that I can experience a fuller and grander version of them. In that process, it will require my full self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skills all the while being mindful and practicing self-conversation.

This transformation will take much from me, and no matter how much I might feel that I can finally raise above the expectations and be detached, the fast-paced life and perpetually on the go lifestyle that I am currently embracing makes matter a whole lot worse.

What I am happy about is that I am at least aware of the direction I want my life to take with regards to relationships. I know that it will require enormous self-regulation. However, because of being empathetic, it becomes difficult to stay unattached to people and situations and because the world is not comfortable with concepts like detachment, this whole transition might definitely exhaust my social skills and dampen my motivation as it already has.

Therefore, my plan for change will require for me to have slight personality switches from time to time so that I can successfully achieve a state of being I am keen to work towards.

Possibly, one of the most revered sayings for lovelorn souls is “If you love something, let it go if it comes back, it was meant to be.” This very nicely puts the sense of detachment we are all meant to nurture. As a close friend of mine shared on her Facebook Timeline: “Love doesn’t require efforts, relationships do.” And because I want to live my relationships free of toxicity, I want to make that effort.