The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved (8 page)

To respect is to value people and things in their proper order. Respect is one of the great cornerstones of relationships. Respect fosters trust and encourages openness and honesty. We should show respect for other people even before they have done anything to deserve it, simply because they are human beings. Respect reminds people of their innate and extraordinary value even if they have forgotten it themselves. At the same time, we should always expect to have to earn the respect of others.

I have often heard people speak of their encounters with great leaders such as Mother Teresa and Gandhi, and almost to a person they say the same thing, “I felt that for those moments there was nothing else in the world but the two of us and our conversation. People were trying to pull at us, and there was a schedule to be keep, but she gazed into my eyes as if she didn’t have a care in the world, as if nothing other than me existed.”

Who doesn’t like to be treated in that way?

How do such people do it?

The outer action of respect is born from the inner quality of reverence, and that reverence is the fruit of reflection, which helps us to see people and things in their true value. But you cannot make someone feel valued if secretly you think he or she is a nobody. We see this all the time in arrogant and self-serving leaders. We can spot them from a mile away, and our natural inclination is to distrust them.

Respect builds trust.

We nurture this respect in two ways.

First, simply learning to enjoy people. Taking the time to get to know them, listening more and speaking less, seeking to understand rather than to be understood. By accepting other people for who they are with all their quirks, understanding that they have had a different experience of life and that those different experiences have contributed to make them who they are today. With every encounter, seek to know people more: who they are, where they come from, what their story is, what their passions are, what are their hopes and dreams.

The second way we nurture respect is by taking time each day to sit in the classroom of silence, to reflect on the true value of people and things. Some people spend time in the classroom of silence by taking a long walk in a quiet place, others spend time in the quiet of their church; some have a big comfortable chair in a corner of their home that serves as their classroom of silence. But one thing is common to all of us: silence makes us take a look at who we are, where we are going, and the value we assign to relationships and things.

How often a child will disrespect a material possession because he or she doesn’t know the value of the item, or how hard you had to work to earn the money to buy it. In this way, we are all still children. We are all ignorant of the real value of certain relationships and things in our lives. Sometimes we are simply oblivious to it; at other times, we simply become a little self-absorbed and forget or disregard the value of things, people, and opportunities. We all lose sight of the true value of things from time to time, and as we lose sight of the true value of things we lose respect—for ourselves, for others, for the many talents, possessions, and opportunities that we have in life, and for life itself.

I
F
T
HERE
I
S
N
O
D
ISCIPLINE
, T
HERE
I
S
N
O
L
OVE

W

hen you think of the word “discipline,” what comes to mind? For many it is an overdemanding teacher or a controlling parent. Try to set that notion of discipline aside, and think of the discipline an athlete freely chooses to bring the best out of himself or herself. Nobody can give you discipline, or make you disciplined. Discipline is a gift we give ourselves.

Every aspect of the human person thrives on discipline, and relationships are no different. Discipline is the price life demands for happiness. Again, I am not speaking about pleasure, I am talking about lasting happiness in a changing world. You cannot be happy for any sustained period of time without discipline.

Discipline is the road that leads to fullness of life.

Consider the four aspects of the human person, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. When we eat well, exercise often, and sleep regularly, we feel more fully alive physically. When we love, when we give priority to the significant relationships of our lives, when we give of ourselves to help others in their journey, we feel more fully alive emotionally. When we read good books that expand our vision or ourselves and our vision of the world, we feel more fully alive intellectually. When we enter into the classroom of silence and come before God in prayer, openly and honestly, we experience life more fully spiritually.

Each of these life-giving endeavors requires discipline. To eat well requires discipline. To exercise regularly requires discipline. To think of other people’s needs before our own wants requires discipline. We do not happen accidentally upon the activities that help us to become the-best-version-of-ourselves. We must choose them, and that choosing requires discipline.

Are you thriving? Or are you just surviving?

When are we most fully alive? When we embrace a life of discipline. The human person thrives on discipline.

Discipline awakens us from the hedonistic stupor of modern popular culture and refines every aspect of the human person. Discipline doesn’t enslave or stifle us; rather, it sets us free to soar to unimagined heights. Discipline sharpens the human senses, allowing us to savor the subtler tastes of life’s experiences. Whether those experiences are physical, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual, discipline elevates them to their ultimate expression. Discipline heightens every human experience and increases every human ability. The challenge of our essential purpose (to become the-best-version-of-ourselves) invites us to embrace this life-giving discipline.

Is discipline, then, to be considered the core of the human experience? No. The life of discipline is proposed not for its own sake, but, rather, as the key to making us free. Discipline is the key to freedom. It is easy to give in to the allure of the momentary pleasures that this world so readily offers, but all great men and woman know the value of delayed gratification. The heroes, leaders, legends, champions, and saints who fill the history books knew how to embrace discipline.

One of the great challenges of the art of living is to learn to discipline ourselves, but at this moment in history, gratification seems to be the master of most people’s hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. We find ourselves enslaved and imprisoned by a thousand different whims, cravings, addictions, and attachments. We have subscribed to the adolescent notion that freedom is the ability to do whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, without interference from any authority. Could the insanity of our modern philosophy be any more apparent?

Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want. Freedom is the strength of character to do what is good, true, noble, and right. Freedom is the ability to choose and celebrate the-best-version-of-yourself in every moment. Freedom without discipline is impossible.

Is freedom, then, the core of the human experience we call life? No. Love is the essence of life. Love is life’s great joy and her greatest lesson. Love is the one task worthy of life. We busy ourselves with so many things, while the one great task we set aside, ignore, neglect. Love is your task—to love yourself by striving to becoming the-best-version-of-yourself, to love others by encouraging them and assisting them in their quest to become the-best-versions-of-themselves, and to love God by becoming all you were created to be.

But in order to love, you must be free, for to love is to give your
self
to someone or something freely, completely, unconditionally, and without reservation. It is as if you could take the essence of your very self in your hands and give it to another person. Yet to give your self—to another person, to an endeavor, or to God—you must first possess your self. This possession of self is freedom. It is a prerequisite for love, and is attained only through discipline.

This is why so very few relationships thrive in our time. The very nature of love requires self-possession. Without self-mastery, self-control, self-dominion, we are incapable of love. We want to love, but without self-possession we are simply unable to do so. We are not free. We do not possess ourselves and so we cannot give ourselves. As a result, we preoccupy ourselves with all the externals of relationships and call those love.

The problem is that we don’t want discipline. We want someone to tell us that we can be happy without discipline. But we can’t. In fact, if you want to measure the level of happiness in your life, measure the level of discipline in your life. The two are directly related.

Think about it. Americans spent $30 billion last year on diet products. The only diet most of us need is a little bit of discipline. But we don’t want discipline. We want someone to get on the television and tell us we can be happy and healthy without discipline, and we will pay any amount of money for it. We want someone to get on the television and tell us if we take this little pill twice a day we can eat whatever we want, whenever we want, and as much as we want, and still look like supermodels. It is another of the great myths of our modern popular culture, the idea that we can be happy without discipline. It’s a lie, it’s a myth, it’s an illusion, and somewhere deep inside we know that.

Every step toward the-best-version-of-ourselves requires discipline.

We need a diet of the body, a disciplined way of eating that helps fuel the body and brings it toward maximum performance. But we also need a diet of the mind, a diet of the heart, and a diet of the soul. Only then are we ready for a serious relationship. With your self in hand, you can choose to freely and completely give yourself to another person in the mystery of love.

If you want to measure the effectiveness of your relationship, measure the discipline in it. If your relationship is filled with and driven by whims, cravings, fancies, and constant lusting after pleasure, you don’t have love. These things don’t help us become the-best-version-of-ourselves, and if we truly loved another person, we would never do or encourage anything that would prevent that person from becoming the-best-version-of-himself or herself.

To love, we must be free, and yet too often we are slaves. Love is a promise, but a slave is in no position to promise anything to anyone. Never believe a promise from a man or woman who has no discipline. They have broken a thousand promises to themselves, and they will break their promise for you.

Discipline is evidence of freedom, and freedom is a prerequisite of love.

Allow discipline to permeate every area of your relationship. Let discipline guide you as a couple in your approach to the foods you eat, the ways you exercise, the way you spend your recreation time, the amount of sleep you get, your finances, your sexuality, the way you raise your children, and the ways you explore and share your spirituality.

In the lives of successful people, we find that discipline is indispensable. Why would relationships be any different?

Is your primary relationship thriving or just surviving?

How much is discipline a part of that relationship?

Do you want a successful relationship?

What makes a successful relationship?

A successful relationship is built when two people are striving to become the-best-version-of-themselves, challenging and encouraging each other to become the-best-version-of-themselves, and inspiring others to pursue their essential purpose by the example of their lives and their love.

You are not just going to wake up one morning in a relationship like that. You have got to want it, and you had better want it bad. Your significant other has got to want it, and want it more than anything else. You have got to formulate a plan (which I will help you do in part three of this book) and you have got to work that plan every day with the discipline of a champion.

If there is no discipline, it’s not love.

H
OW
M
UCH
S
HOULD
W
E
G
IVE
?

M

any years ago I was dating a wonderful young woman, and on her college graduation day she gave me a copy of Shel Silverstein’s book
The Giving Tree
. Katie was that type of person. On a day when everyone was giving her gifts, she was giving gifts to others. My parents and teachers had read the book to me dozens of times during my childhood, but at that particular moment the book struck a deep chord in me again.

At certain times in my life I have found myself to be too much like the tree—giving too much, in self-destructive measures; at other times I have found myself to be very much like the boy—absorbed in the moment, enjoying people, places, and things for who and what they are, giving and receiving joy; and still, at other times, I have found myself to be too much like the man that the boy becomes—taking with no regard for the needs of others.

The story powerfully raises one of the ever-present questions in relationships, How much should we give?

When a relationship is going well, the question may be in the back of our minds, but it seems unimportant and perhaps irrelevant. While the other person is giving freely and generously, we seem willing to give without restraint. But when the other person turns in on himself or herself and becomes self-interested, self-centered, and self-absorbed, we don’t know if this is a passing phase or a new and permanent disposition and the question begins to loom in our hearts and minds. Once this turning in on self begins, a relationship can very quickly become transactional, and it easy for us to feel that we are being taken advantage of, even used.