As people live, work, interact, and spend time with those around them, they gradually form expectations and desires about others. Some reasonable expectations and desires may help improve relationships and living environments. Others, however, create constant tension and turn daily life into an ongoing battlefield. The problem is that people aren’t often aware of the existence and influence of these desires within relationships, nor understand where are the reasonable limits of these expectations. As a result, conflict frequently becomes a persistent part of relationships with others and within oneself.
Family is perhaps the place where the most desires accumulate and where conflicts are the hardest to resolve. Within a family, members inevitably hold many expectations toward one another. Parents expect their children to be obedient, respectful, academically successful, and socially accomplished. Children want their parents to provide the things they like and give them freedom. Husbands and wives expect respect, cooperation, and fulfillment of their needs from each other. Depending on culture and circumstances, these desires may differ. But often, these desires do not align, sometimes they oppose one another, and from this conflict emerges.
Relationships outside the family are usually formed through shared interests, common benefits, and sometimes certain agreed principles of behavior. These commonalities and clear boundaries can make conflicts easier to manage and help maintain normalcy in relationships. But within a family, sometimes the only thing members share is the desire for harmony and the absence of conflict. Yet even this good intention can lead to words and actions that make conflicts even more complicated. Differences in desires create prolonged struggles that may only end when one person lets go of their attachment to what they want.
So is it wrong to have desires toward others? And should people stop expecting things from one another?
Whether one considers this right or wrong, should or should not, is for each person to decide. But a simple answer of right or wrong has little value without serious reflection and careful observation of how these desires affect relationships and oneself. Because even if we label them right or wrong, should or should not, conflict will continue to exist despite all efforts to solve it, until we understand the root of the problem.
When we look at people, what do we actually see? Do we see them as they are in the present moment? Or do we project onto them things we have remembered and accumulated from the past?
Desires about our environment and the people around us gradually form over time and become part of how we interact with others. We remember what we like and dislike. These images drive us to seek their realization in real life. When reality fails to match the desired image a person holds in their mind, that person reacts to the discrepancy. The desires and expectations we store in our minds give rise to actions, thoughts, words, and emotions.
Wanting others to respect us, trying to make others respect us, becoming upset when they do not. Craving recognition from others, putting great effort into doing things we believe will earn their approval, receiving praise, feeling a brief moment of pride, then continuing to seek more validation. Wanting others to live according to our ideals, judging them when they live differently, feeling superior because we believe we are living correctly, trying to change others, becoming disappointed when they are not appreciate our efforts. Wanting loved ones to fulfill the expectations we have of them, trying to persuade or pressure them into living according to our expectations, feeling irritated when they act otherwise…
Perhaps we hold many desires about the world around us. Perhaps we constantly react to life through the lens of our desires. Perhaps we often place our desires first before considering anything else. All of these tendencies and actions carry consequences for ourselves and for our relationships.
Unfulfilled desires create distance in relationships. Expectations toward others can prevent us from truly understanding who they are in the present moment. As long as a person clings tightly to expectations of others, they will continue to experience the negative emotions of unmet desires.
Some relationships revolve entirely around the desires and expectations two people have of each other. Both may always focus on what they want from the other and expect the other person to behave according to their wishes. Unfulfilled expectations silently create tension within the relationship. If conflicts remain unresolved and accumulate over time, the mind may associate that tension with the person involved in the conflict. Sometimes merely thinking about that one person is enough to trigger irritation and make blood pressure spike. If each person stubbornly clings to their desires, the relationship can become filled with repetitive, endless battles.
So how do we step out of this conflict?
Are we aware of the desires behind our actions, words, and thoughts toward others? Are we aware of the impact this tendency has on our relationships, on others, and on ourselves?
“But if we do not desire good things, how can relationships become better? If we do not want others to become better, how can we help them improve? If we do not desire our environment to become the way we wish, how can we have a better life?”
Does a healthy relationship truly come from striving to make it appear healthy? Does trying to change others actually make them change? Does becoming consumed by the desires, then treating people around us as tools or obstacles in pursuit of what we want, make our inner life better?
Have we ever taken the time to seriously investigate these question and observe our own actions? Have we ever truly listened to others in order to understand them? Or are we merely focused on finding ways to compensate for conflict in relationships? Are we trying to cover life and relationships with a beautiful surface while tension and conflict still exist underneath? Are we attempting to change things we have never paid close attention to understand? Are we trying to end a battle without truly understanding why it exists in the first place?
Conflict in relationships grows when each person clings tightly to their own desires. Trying to resolve conflict without understanding its root only makes it more complicated. Conflict temporarily retreats when desires are fullfilled, but if we continue stubbornly holding onto opposing desires, conflict will inevitably return. Conflict disappears when attachment to desire fades. Yet trying to eliminate the root of conflict or trying not to cling to desires, only creates further inner conflict. When we truly see and understand the root of conflict within ourselves and within our relationships, conflict naturally dissolves.