You Reap Just What You Sow

Earlier, I was listening to one of Adele's songs, "Rolling in the Deep". Near the end of the song I heard the line "you reap just what you sow" and it made me think. It is a well known saying, but I've never actually sat and thought about the true meaning behind it.

It made me think specifically about relationships, and it is the time and effort you put into them that results in how much you get out of them. I know that relationships aren't exactly my strong point, and it was the ending of my most recent relationship that pushed me to finally create this blog. I know that when I am in a relationship, I feel as though I am giving my all to it, but when I look back on them I realise that actually I didn't. At the beginning, when the relationship is new and fresh and exciting, I do put a lot of effort in, but when the novelty wears thin, I guess I don't bother as much. And then, surprise, surprise, things go downhill and the relationship ends. I was reaping what I had sown. I know this is terrible, but at least I am realising and recognising my mistakes, because now I can begin to work on stopping this. However, I also need to remember that not every single one of my relationships that has ended has been completely my fault. This is important as I don't want to damage my self-esteem by blaming myself for everything.

I didn't just think about boyfriend/girlfriend types of relationships, but I also thought about ones involving friends and family. I especially thought in depth about how this applies to family relationships, because for the last few days, things between me and my family have't been great. There have been many arguments, and things have got particularly worse now that I am on holiday with them, because we are spending all of our time together. Every time that they brought up one certain subject and tried to talk to me about it, I would get angry and close up and refuse to talk about it. The more that I refused, the more they pushed, making me angry, and resulting in an argument, and when arguments aren't resolved, there is always an underlying awkwardness and tension when trying to act normally again. So, today, when the subject was brought back up, although it was extremely hard, I sat there and talked to them about it and answered their questions. I didn't get angry or agitated, but I told them what they wanted to know. They were very happy with this, and grateful that I did talk to them, as before they were just worried about me. Now they felt reassured, and for the rest of today things have been fine with no more arguments.

Sometimes that's all it takes, a bit of communication to help sort things out. The more you talk, the easier it will become and the better the relationship will be. I know that this is tremendously hard in practice, but just give it a go and you might be surprised. I know that there will still be times when I don't want to talk about things, and that is okay. I just know that I need to be a bit more open with my family so that they don't worry as much and they will trust me more.

Putting hard work and effort into relationships really does help, and I do believe that you will reap all the benefits and get much more out of them.