What your Parents and Friends Say

Simple Truth:
Everyone wants their parents to accept the person that they ultimately marry. Parents too, want you, more than anything, to marry someone that they approve of. That is why, while growing up, your parents as well as others who desired your well-being, would tell you things about what they expect from the person you marry. “Marry someone with money,” “You better make sure she isn’t two-faced,” “He should hold open the door for you,” etc.

The problem with the comments and requests that others give you, is that they are not your requirements. Although your parents and friends and neighbors may have good intentions, it is good actions that matter in the scheme of life, not the good intentions behind them. The only person who can accurately make decisions for you, is you. Although your friends and family may think they know what is best for you, only you can make that decision.

Finding a spouse is not something other people can help you with. In order to mature and grow, and thereby develop yourself into marriage material, you will need to develop habits of self-confidence and trust. You will need to learn how to make decisions on your own without the aid of other people. When you get married, you cannot run home to mommy and daddy every time you run into relationship problems. Your neighbors, friends, and religious adviser are your last resort for relationship problems.--The only person who you can accurately rely on is yourself, and therefore, developing your own decision making skills is an absolute must. When you are actually married, if you run into problems with your spouse, how do you think your spouse would respond to you turning to your old friends to complain about her or him? Do you think that your best friend has the ability to persuade your husband or wife to join your side of a argument any better than you do?

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can’t trust the things that your parents or friends say about someone who you are getting serious with. There are times when your brain quits working because you are overwhelmed with chemicals, and these things can cause you to not think clearly and even get into hazardous situations. Having a second pair of eyes is a good thing in that case because it can help you to come to your senses. However, you always need to take everything that other people say with a grain of salt. They do not know you as well as you do, and although they may want certain things for you, you need to realize whether the things they want for you are going to fulfill your needs.

Families are especially active in telling you what you should and should not expect out of a spouse.—they have lived with you the longest and probably think they know you the best.--But families also have their own agendas. What I mean is that families start with specific goals in mind: Two couples come together with goals and plans that they want to fulfill in life and work towards. You were a part of their plan; after you were born they made plans to sustain you and to help you grow. But when once you reach marriageable age, in a sense, they fulfilled their responsibility to you. Many parents are nice and love you so much that they continue to sustain and help you, but looking at the natural processes of things, you are very much on your own the moment you are old enough to get married.






The reason for this is simple: Just like your parents took risks and ventured off on their own and ultimately got married, so too must you do the same in order to perpetuate the cycle. You need to get married so that you may have children, continue learning and growing, and ultimately accomplish your purpose in life. You can do none of these things without being married. And you aren’t merely expected to do these things. You are REQUIRED to do these things. You have an obligation to your Heavenly Father and to your earthly parents to get married. Why do I say that? Because what would the purpose of your parent’s lives be in having children, if those children did not grow up and become like them? Having children isn’t merely a fun thing to do, it isn’t merely so that they can have companionship. It is to perpetuate a long-lasting cycle that has continued for thousands of years and thousands of generations. You are obligated to get married and form your own “family” simply because you were born.

But to protect the family from rebellious, outside influences, families have a way of making their own patterns, behaviors and beliefs that control the processes in the marriage cycle. Sometimes these patterns are for good, such as making sure that you do not marry someone who will abuse you and limit your potential. At other times, these things can have negative effects, such as preventing you from getting married entirely. No one is perfect, and these cultural behaviors are designed by imperfect people, so you need to take these with a grain of salt as well.

The whole objective of this article is to help you realize that you need to think for yourself. No one can choose a husband or wife for you; it is something you need to do on your own. And trust me, if you do this, you will be much more satisfied with the relationship that you develop from the situation. Don’t let your friends or family dissuaded you from your decisions. Whether those decisions are to leave or to stay, you need to take accountability for them, because if you constantly rely on other people to make your decisions or to prevent you from doing things that you might regret, then how will you ever learn to make decisions on your own?

As I have said numerous times: Relationships require risks. If you don’t put anything on the line (whether it’s personal dignity or possibility of regret) then you will never learn, never improve your relationship abilities, and never have that dream relationship that you have always wanted.

That’s what Dating Zion is all about: helping you to realize what you will have to do in order to have your dream relationship. If you have any questions about what I have said in this article, or if your mind is so blown right now from what I said and you realize that you need to make some changes in your life, please let me know either by commenting below or emailing me right now ( consultdz@live.com ). I am always trying to improve this website and enlarge the understanding of its audience, so I would LOVE to get some input from you! …Thanks!

Why you can't change anyone

I realize that a lot of my articles have been about changing yourself in order to fit the needs and wants of your future spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, or friends. But today I need to correct what might be a misconception about this topic: The only person that YOU can change, is you.
We all have equal potential to change our lives for the better, some are further in their progression than others, but each of us has the ability to become as benevolent and rich physically, mentally and emotionally as we desire. Why do people fail to obtain the things that they talk so much about wanting? Because, even with the ability to do anything and become anything, there are many who do not tap into their full potential.

Change requires work; it is a very challenging, and progression isn’t easy. The reason why so many people fail to achieve success in this life is because they:

1. Do not work hard enough-- Real growth and progression comes not from the end result, but the process of making a transformation. Eggs do not instantly become chicks, children are not instantly made into adults, and dreams do not fall right into our laps. There are a lot of things that happen “behind the scenes” before the end is reached. Success requires a gradual process, and work is a necessary component in achieving the things we desire most. No one can put in the work for you; no one cares enough about your success to do it for you, you need to do all of the hard work by yourself.
   Once you decide that you want to have an amazing relationship for the rest of your life, you still need to put in the work and make an effort to obtain that relationship.
2. Do not make the right sacrifices-- Sacrifices are only sacrifices when something is put on the line or given up. Ideally, sacrifices are designed so that when you give up one thing, you receive a better thing in its place, but not all sacrifices work out that way. When you sacrifice the wrong thing, you don’t get any closer to the thing you ultimately want to have. True too, when you give up something that isn’t really of worth to you, then you really aren’t sacrificing and won’t make any progress either.
   Selfishness is a natural part of every one of us, and it is often this character trait that we must sacrifice in order to reach our goals and dreams--particularly when those dreams involve relationships with other people.
3. Aren’t working towards anything--To reach success, you need to have a well-defined idea of what success is. What is it that you are working towards? What do you want to accomplish? If you can’t answer that question, then you are left at a standstill--you are left like the sailor who has no heading and with no heading, it doesn’t matter which direction you go, you still won’t get any closer.
   With relationships, you need to understand what it is that you want out of a relationship. What needs do you have to fulfill? At what point in the relationship will you feel you have reached success?

Just like no one can do the work for you, you can’t do the work for someone else. Any sacrifices that others make are sacrifices for themselves and not for you. And even if other people share your goals and dreams, until YOU reach those goals and dreams, you haven’t obtained success--they may have, but you haven’t.

Now, let me throw in some additional insights that were hidden in what I just told you:

1. relationships are work. They are never-ending, because the moment that you stop working on improving your relationship is the moment it becomes stagnant and falls apart.
2. It requires work on both sides. If one of you doesn’t put forth an effort then it will fall apart, no matter how hard the other person works to save it.
3. You can’t expect people to make sacrifices for you. –This goes two ways: you can’t expect them to sacrifice in your behalf, because as I already explained, that doesn’t work. You also can’t expect them to make sacrifices to have you without you making equal sacrifices for them. Purely one-sided relationships don’t work…there is no such thing as 100/0 relationship.—that isn’t a relationship, it’s one person pushing things on the other person.
4. Your goals are YOUR goals. When you get into a relationship with someone, there might come a point where you have gone above and beyond their expectations—you fulfilled their goals and dreams. But at that moment, they may not have quite fulfilled your goals and dreams yet. You can look at this in two ways: A) It would be easier for you to find someone who has equal expectations and goals and dreams, because then you will both feel you have achieved success and fulfillment at the same time. Or B) you could look at that and say: just because he or she is satisfied doesn’t mean that I am, and -I- need to put in more work and sacrifice more in order to get there. If #2 is the case, then you need to be upfront with the other person the moment that you realize that they are “over-satisfied”. You need to talk to them about where you would still like the relationship to go and see what trade-offs can be made in order to reach that point. This sounds contrary to what I mentioned previously, but they may need to sacrifice a little more in order to continue having you—to balance your relationship out.
   
5. Relationships must clearly take time to build. Anything that requires work, sacrifice, and goals/dreams/or plans will take a lot of time in order to come true. “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” it took a lot of work, sacrifice, and planning to become what it ultimately became, and when that pattern of work, planning and sacrifice became corrupted, it fell.