Saturday, March 26, 2011

Influencers

Another topic that has been flitting through my head during the hours I've spent on a tractor lately is the role of spousal influence on making decisions. Anyone who knows me IRL would say that I have a very fixed personality and that the decisions I make today would be very similar to the decisions I'd have made 20 years ago, or, the Good Lord willing, to the decisions I will make 20 years from now. And mostly, they'd be pretty right about that. Or at least I thought so !

Although we share similar thoughts on some key issues, it'd be fair to say that when we met Melissa was my polar opposite in a lot of respects. We certainly didn't have to work very hard to come up with topics to debate about, that is for sure. And we both have strong feelings about what we believe in combined with relatively strong personalities to lend credence to our feelings. But when I review my thoughts on certain key topics today and compare them to my thoughts of a few years ago on the same topics, either she's moved or I've moved because we aren't nearly as opposite as we used to be ! I've even managed to find grey areas where at one time I'd have seen nothing but black and white.

This got me to thinking about the role ALL the influencers in our lives currently play, from friends to parents, siblings, neighbours, church leaders, etc., and how as we mature, we begin to recognize that some of our thoughts on things we were once passionate about are no longer serving our interests, especially if one of those interests is continued marital harmony.

How big an influence has your spouse or significant other had on your decision making process ? It's certainly something to think about !

2 comments:

RuckusButt said...

"Marriage"
After seven years
I've almost succeeded
if freeing my wife
from her ludicrous fear
of electrical storms.

Tonight she parted
the curtains to watch
the lightning burst open
like an enormous golden
flower, consume itself, die
to the accompaniment
of the sound the sky might
make if it were
solid and could be
cracked open from
horizon to zenith.

And I flinched.

After seven years.

That much of her
implanted in me.

~Alden Nowlen (1933-1983)

Jason said...

I think I'm going to tattoo this on my forehead, backwards, so that on particularly bad days I can stand in front of a mirror and read it to myself. :)