Author: Shatakshi
The trials and tribulations of a tumultuous relationship often seem like one of the greatest struggles we have to persevere through. They often turn into dogfights at the end where all mutual respect and self-respect are lost. After all this, it may seem like the worst is over, but what comes next truly tests our mettle. See, the problem is much more deep-rooted than you think. We don’t know how to acclimate loss because we live in an age of convenience. Nothing on the way to our first relationship prepares us for our first heartbreak.
Often, we think too far ahead into the future and forget that the path to its realization is more important than a simplistic picture of what we want ten or twenty years down the line. Part of this could be attributed to the novelty of a new relationship. One person starts to seem like a quick fix to all of our problems. However, happiness felt because of a foreign presence is transient, as there is no guarantee on a person’s commitment, and therefore on a relationship’s longevity. However, emotional immaturity is arguably the largest instigator of failed relationships and subsequent mismanagement of feelings after it. It may seem harsh and oddly conservative to believe that teenagers are not ready to be in a relationship, but the fact of the matter is, they’re not. Let’s break it down.
Up until the age of say seventeen or eighteen, the greatest challenge in an average person’s life is the next examination they have to take. They go to school every weekday and prepare six to seven hours a day for every assessment, apart from the time they allot for self-study. Compared to all of this preparation for an exam, which in most cases has no bearings on someone’s future, there is no preparation or even a thought allotted to evaluating emotional stability and building emotional intelligence. With this preparation, the first relationship is often a steep learning curve if it occurs in someone’s teenage years.
We can look at two solutions to make a start towards solving this problem. We should ideally teach our kids to deal with emotions organically and let them accept how they feel without being overwhelmed by how society demands them to behave. Children have very impressionable minds. Things learned during this period often stick with them throughout their lives. It is paramount to build a strong foundation for our children. Children should be taught to deal with loss. Giving someone everything they’ve ever wanted and then telling them to be independent is like getting someone addicted to heroin and asking them to quit cold turkey. Expressing how you feel is very important because suppressed emotions often lead to a troubled mind. Things like hypertension and anxiety can often be the result of bottled up emotions. These things are a recipe for disaster when it comes to handling heartbreak because a loss like that can trigger the release of overwhelming emotions, which can be detrimental to someone’s mental health.
If we look around, we’ll see that most successful relationships often start in the mid to late twenties. It is definitely because a person has matured naturally and has responsibilities to bear on their shoulders. Hence, even though a relationship might still fail, they are better equipped to sort themselves out and also lack time to ponder over tiny details and feel miserable.
Relationships are by no means things to be avoided. Everyone seeks companionship in some form or the other, whether they admit to it or not. However, as with everything in life, it is important to not get carried away by emotions and accept things as they are without blowing anything out of proportion. The beauty of any emotion is in the fact that they change. We must embrace change as it comes, not as we please. The matters of the heart are capable of being resolved with some mindfulness.
