What’s even more important than communication?

[00:00:00] Well, hello. This is The Daily Five with Aurooba, that's me, where we reflect on creating our best lives a little bit every day. Here we go.

[00:00:17] What do good relationships that have the ability to survive, thrive, and grow have in common? Good marriages, good friendships, good professional working relationships, any relationship that lasts longer than a few months, you know, something sustainable. What is the most important thing they have in common?

[00:00:38] That is the question I found myself pondering today, all throughout my day. From the moment I've woken up today till right now, I've been obsessing over this question.

[00:00:50] And the first thing that comes to mind is communication, right? Good communication comes up again and again and again, no matter what the context. Whether it's a marriage or a work thing or a friendship. I've often separated people into good communicators and not so good communicators in my mind. And that's how highly I value it. That's how important I feel it is. But is it the most important thing? Is good communication the bedrock of good lasting relationships?

[00:01:23] Mentally, I battle tested this question again and again today, working through every conflict I could remember in my life, the good ones, the bad ones, the ones I've experienced, and the ones I've witnessed. And it's true that good communication would have made most of the really bad conflicts better. But it is also true that communication can and will break down at some point between you and another person, no matter how good at communicating you both are.

[00:01:54] Sometimes the situation is truly that awful. Sometimes you truly are that much at odds. Sometimes there's so much strife and pain and pressure on both of you that these comms just break down. So then what? Does that break the relationship? Does it, you know, permanently harm it in some way? make it non recoverable?

[00:02:20] Sometimes, yeah, it does. But the really good relationships, they survive it. My really, really good relationships have survived situations like this. So then, the question becomes, Why? How? If your relationship can survive the breakdown of communication, then it's not the bedrock, or at least it's not all of it.

[00:02:48] So then what's the other piece? Or maybe it's more than one piece? And then I found myself thinking about the advice about marriage that I have always valued. Because, you know, relationships, marriage is one of the biggest relationships you'll ever, ever have. One of the pieces of advice that I really value is something my grandfather said to me years and years ago, I was a child when he said this to me. He told me, Above all, choose to marry someone you can be friends with, someone you like, because feelings of love can be fickle and they can ebb and flow, but if you like your person, then it's okay if the love ebbs and flows. This is fairly common advice, I'm sure you've heard it too.

[00:03:34] But, I mean, this came to mind, but then I started thinking, you know, no, it isn't that you choose someone you like. Then I was like, well, then what is it? How do you choose someone if it isn't primarily on the basis of liking or loving. And then I started thinking about how I think it's respect. Respect is the bedrock of good relationships of any kind, any kind, or at the very least a major component. I think you do have to like that person. I think that's very solid advice, but respect needs to be there. If it's not there from the beginning, at least it needs to grow, you know, it needs to appear.

[00:04:19] When communication does break down. What brings you back to the table, what keeps you going, is the respect you deeply and genuinely feel for another person. Their thoughts, their value, their feelings. Even if they all seem totally wrong to you, it's respect that keeps you there at the table trying again and again. Unfailing, unerring, genuine, deep respect. Holding each other in high esteem. And the more important the relationship, the higher this level of respect needs to be, I think.

[00:04:51] And, you know, you cannot respect others if you do not respect yourself, because you'll always project your lack of self respect onto others in some way. So, respect for yourself and for the other person, put together, forms a big part of why good relationships are, maybe great relationships, keep going, and I think respect is beautiful, perhaps more beautiful than love.

[00:05:21] Respect is like, uh, the root system that sustains the majestic redwoods, or the long lived banyan trees, or the wistful, weeping willows. Roots that are mostly invisible, but without which nothing above ground could have really grown. So, that's where I'm at with my answer to this question that has hounded me all day.

[00:05:53] Respect. Thanks for listening. Same time tomorrow?