What I’ve Learned This Year II: How business partners teach you about personal relationships

Another year has passed, and my birthday is approaching. Each December I ask myself the question, as usually ask my guests at my annual lunch or dinner party, “What have you learned this year?” I’m looking for all sorts of revelations. We walk among each other but we have different lives, and very different experiences.

In the past like many of you, I can say that I’ve learned, “What not to do as a friend,” and “How not to be a friend”. I talk about my experiences over the last few years toward the end of my memoir Identity Crisis, Identity Christ Is: A Journey to Love. This year, however I’ve been exposed to a new place in friendship and I think it’s important to document my findings.

I’ve learned this year that business relationships can teach you a lot about personal relationships.

We are mesmerized by the idea of success, and even more infatuated with the possibility of finding someone who may share our same ambitions.

The truth is however, that we sensationalize our relationships with hope. We find something that feels like a sweet spot and try to give it a Hickey, sucking the life out of it until we wake up and realize that it’ll just bruise anyway.

I have been blessed to be released from some relationships that are distracting to my goals in life, and have had the privilege to keep relationships that have been tried and true. There are some that I knew would abandon me at the convenient time, and others that have shown me what love does.

I am grateful for the two distant realities. I take this new learning curve on with courage to know the difference between an acquaintance, a friend for now, and a friend for life.

One of the key benefits of learning about friendships, partners and how they season, is that I’ve finally found someone who loves me with his heart. He sees my challenges, and my discretion with life and wins me over with love. He is all that a friend should possess. After all, lovers should always be friends first right? We’ve contaminated the word friend to make sinful companionship easier for the takers in the relationships to swallow.

However, this is love. It is beautiful, free, compassionate, tender, motivating, I’d-rather-be-right-here-with-you, kind of love. And I’m deeply grateful. Without lessons about friendships and relationships, I may not have seen the camouflage. So to my love, I’m glad I see you.

I’ll continue to write What I’ve learned this year, and post them as they come.

Thank you,

Ressurrection Graves

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